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THE 


WORD    OF    THE    SPIRIT 


THE    CHURCH. 

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BOSTON : 

WALKER,    WISE,    AND     COMPANY. 

1859. 


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BOSTON: 

PRINTED    BY    JOHN    WILSON    AND    SON, 

22,  School  Street. 


PREFACE. 


This  little  volume  proceeds  from  a  design  simply  to  preach 
a  sermon.  Its  substance  has  mostly  been  given  in  the  form 
of  instruction  at  the  West  Church ;  and,  but  for  exceeding 
the  proper  limits,  was  proposed  also  for  a  Thursday  Lecture. 
I  do  not  connect  my  name  with  its  title,  because  the  book 
itself  contains  only  some  hint  of  the  sublime  meaning  such 
a  title  suggests.  But  I  write  not  anonymously,  and  disown 
no  just  responsibility  for  whatever  I  may  say.  It  were 
needless  to  inform  any  reader,  that  my  subject  has  been 
suggested  by  the  present  state  of  the  general  mind  upon 
radical  questions  of  religion ;  and  as  I  have  alluded  in  one 
passage  to  the  topic  of  a  discourse  by  Dr.  Bellows,  which, 
beyond  most  of  a  similar  kind,  has  succeeded  to  fame,  I  ask 
leave  here  to  say,  that,  in  the  whole  drift  of  my  thought,  I 
have  projected  an  independent  treatment  of  my  theme.  It 
is  in  no  opposition  to  that  gentleman,  my  most  dear  friend, 
that  I  could  anywhere  appear.  If  I  take  a  different  direction, 
as  seamen  have  diverse  routes  to  the  same  ports  in  Europe 
or  the  Indies,  nevertheless  I  admire  the  way  he  has  pursued 
his ;  and  I  by  no  means  undervalue  his  course  in  present- 
ing, in  some  sense,  a  humble  counterpart.  Seldom,  indeed, 
has  the  press  of  this  country  put  forth  matter,  which,  for 
combination  of  intellectual  power  and  rhetorical  splendor, 
with  frank  speech  and  a  good  spirit,  can  be  compared  with 
his  two  recent  productions.     There  is  no  abler  advocate  alive 


4  PREFACE. 

of  any  point  in  religion  he  may  lay  down ;  and  it  may  be 
doubted  if  any  technically  Catholic  author  in  the  land  has 
argued  the  case  of  the  church  so  finely,  in  its  humane  sig- 
nificance as  well  as  its  logical  force.  Evidently,  too,  he  has 
done  this  with  a  motive  disinterested,  purged  from  all  per- 
sonal aims,  and  inducing  the  entire  consecration  of  his  ener- 
gies to  the  work  of  relieving,  nourishing,  and  cheering  the 
whole  fellowship  and  body  of  Christ.  As  the  Roman  orator 
consulted  for  the  republic's  safety,  he  has  been  anxious  lest 
the  nobler  commonwealth  should  receive  harm. 

Otherwise,  though  by  necessity  of  conviction  or  nature  I 
may  be  constrained  to  speak,  I  have  no  regret,  but  only  re- 
joicing, in  the  masterly  performance  of  his  undertaken  task. 
Great  good  to  the  denomination  of  which  he  is  a  member,  and 
to  the  church  at  large,  must  result  from  the  earnest  debate  he 
has  had  the  ability  to  move.  Not  from  stir,  but  from  sleep, 
is  our  spiritual  danger;  and  New-England  men,  therefore, 
will  thank  for  his  work's  sake  the  New-England's  son  now 
their  New-York  missionary  brother.  Quite  unimportant  to 
him  is  such  open  commendation  or  recognition.  He  will 
care  for  the  truth  only,  and  welcome  from  friend  or  stranger 
whatever  least  sign  of  its  direct  shining  or  faint-reflected 
light.  Yet  is  it  of  consequence  to  all  persons  in  delicate 
bonds  of  relationship,  so  far  as  they  may,  to  keep  the  public 
apprehension  in  conformity  with  private  esteem.  Let  this 
excuse  references  such  as  it  is  no  wont  of  mine  to  make. 
May  He,  whose  being  is  the  link  of  all  our  unions,  lead  us 
into  his  perfect  truth  and  love  ! 

C.  A.  BARTOL. 


THE 


WORD    OF    THE    SPIRIT 


THE     CHURCH. 


T?VERY  reader  of  the  Bible  must  have  no 
ticed,  in  the  Revelation,  the  solemn,  seven- 
fold arraigning  of  the  seven  churches  in  Asia  by 
the  Voice  of  that  wonderful  vision  described 
as  appearing  to  John.  This  supremacy  of  the 
spiritual  in  religion  over  the  ecclesiastical  is 
asserted  or  implied  throughout  the  New  Testa- 
ment. In  assuming  it,  however,  I  design  no 
contradiction  of  the  plea,  that  Scripture  is  not 
our  only  rule ;  that  the  church  pre-existing  is  a 
co-ordinate  power  with  the  Holy  Writ  it  pro- 
duces. But  I  affirm  the  amenableness  of  both 
book  and  body  to  the  Spirit  which  is  their  com- 
mon parent.     Proposing  no  abstract,  but  a  plain 

l 


b  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

and  practical  discussion,  I  shall  speak  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Spirit  as  our  only  authority  in  its 
Principle,  its  Abuse,  and  the  Kemedy. 

I.  Let  me  treat  of  the  Principle. 

There  is  in  every  soul,  awake  to  its  wants,  one 
question,  —  On  what  authority,  as  to  the  things 
I  should  believe  and  do  and  hope  for,  can  I  rest  ? 
Always  a  question,  it  has  of  late  been  agitated 
among  us  with  peculiar  warmth.  According  as 
it  is  by  individuals  for  themselves  decided  one 
way  or  another,  what  uprooting  of  the  oldest 
ties,  changing  of  vital  relations,  and  sudden  tra- 
versing by  human  creatures  of  the  whole  orbit 
of  their  lives,  and  sphere  of  Christendom ! 
There  are  a  great  many  answers  to  this  ques- 
tion, from  all  the  churches  and  sects,  and  modes 
of  faith,  in  the  world,  —  answers  resolving  them- 
selves into  this  invitation  from  every  party: 
"  Come  with  us  ;  we  have  the  truth ;  all  doctrines 
and  forms  beside  ours  are  spurious."  The  answer 
in  the  Bible,  especially  given  by  Jesus  and  his 
apostles,  and  also  spoken  or  echoed  in  the  depths 
of  the  soul  itself,  admits  no  authority  but  that 
of  the  Spirit,     Ecclesiastical  authority,  of  one 


TO    THE    CHUECH.  i 

church  or  another,  of  the  church  in  part  or 
altogether,  over  the  soul  of  man,  does  not  exist. 
The  church  anywhere,  local  or  universal,  is  but 
a  creation  and  agent  of  the  Spirit,  useful  only  so 
far  as  the  Spirit  is  in  it  represented  and  obeyed, 
accountable  to  the  Spirit  for  its  shortcomings 
and  misdemeanors.  So  the  writer  in  the  Reve- 
lation indicts  it  at  Ephesus,  Smyrna,  Pergamos, 
Thyatira,  Sardis,  Philadelphia,  and  Laodicea,  for 
actual  sins  and  declensions ;  noting  scarce  a  sin- 
gle branch  of  it  clean  of  spot,  and  none  without 
fearful  danger.  What  a  dread  list  is  made  out 
of  sins,  —  of  idolatry,  impurity,  moral  debility, 
vanity,  lying,  lukewarmness,  and  failing  love  ; 
yea,  in  the  chosen  synagogues  of  the  Lord  ! 
This  fact,  that  the  church  itself  is  corruptible, 
and  liable  to  err,  as  universal  history  and  expe- 
rience indeed  prove,  blows  all  to  pieces  its  pre- 
tence of  supreme  authority  as  to  truth,  duty,  or 
destiny.  Whence,  indeed,  comes  its  right  to 
stand  between  the  soul  and  God?  Where,  in 
any  Romish,  English,  Episcopal,  Congregational, 
Presbyterian,  Baptist,  Methodist,  Lutheran,  or 
Calvinistic  establishment,  does  any  perfect  pu- 
rity or  wisdom  show  the  warrant  of  its  business 


8  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

to  command  the  mind  or  to  order  the  conduct  of 
men  ?  The  New  Testament  deals  mostly  writh 
local  churches ;  and  a  church  more  or  less  local 
is  alone  available  to  the  soul  as  an  authority  in 
the  sense  claimed.  The  church  at  large  is,  as 
Paul  writes  to  Timothy,  the  pillar  and  ground 
of  the  truth.  But  the  fortifying  of  truth  in  the 
world  differs  from  the  inspiring  of  it  in  the  soul ; 
and  this  text  empowers  no  church,  authorizes  no 
concert,  to  rule  the  children  of  God.  When  the 
people  of  any  sect  or  denomination  would  make 
proselytes  of  us,  and  have  nothing  better  than  to 
say,  "  Come  with  us,  and  join  our  communion ; 
we  alone  are  Christian,  with  the  warrant  of  God 
and  favor  in  heaven," —  then  let  us  reply  by  dis- 
owning any  such  authority.  Even  Jesus,  with 
his  disciples,  insisted  not  on  anybody's  following 
visibly  in  the  same  troop.  He  blamed  some  of 
them  for  rebuking  those  who  chose  to  do  good 
their  own  separate  way.  Let  us,  in  turn,  never 
say  to  any  one,  "  Come  with  us  ;  "  but,  "  Go  with 
the  Spirit,  and  come  only  so  far  as  you  can  find  it 
here  ! w  Let  us  heed  only  such  teachers  as  refer 
us,  not  to  their  creed,  their  assembly,  their  style 
or  book  of  worship,  as  final  or  sufficient ;  but  to 


TO    THE    CHURCH.  9 

the  Spirit  of  truth,  beauty,  goodness,  —  the  uni- 
versal, infinite,  pure,  and  loving  Spirit  of  God. 

But  how  very  vague,  indefinite,  and  impracti- 
cable to  most  persons,  teaching  such  a  generality 
seems  !  "  You  talk  of  the  consciousness  of  God," 
said  one  to  a  preacher  :  "  I  cannot  say  I  ever  had 
it,  or  that  I  even  know  what  you  mean."  So 
many  will  ask,  "  What  is  this  Spirit  of  which 
you  speak  ?  We  do  not  find  it.  Where  and  how 
are  we  to  get  it  ?  When  you  present  to  us  arti- 
cles in  a  creed,  forms  of  service  in  a  church,  to 
strike  the  eye  and  ear,  we  can  take  hold  of  and 
be  affected  by  them.  But  Spirit,  —  invisible, 
intangible,  inaudible,  —  we  are  not  reached  or 
touched  by  it ;  and  it  will  not  suffice  for  our 
instruction  or  salvation."  I  can  only  answer,  Of 
such  lowest  ground  a  rational  creature  can  take, 
let  us  beware.  Unbelief  in  the  Spirit  is  the 
only  essential  infidelity.  I  know  how  men  in 
religion,  as  all  other  things,  are  moved  by  out- 
ward sights  and  sounds.  I  knowT  how  dim  and 
unreal  to  gross  and  carnal  minds  is  internal 
influence.  Ah !  with  what  deep  policy  the  an- 
cient Catholicism  has  taken,  not  only  affections 
and    faculties,  but    the  Jive   senses,  under   its 


10  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

charge  !  Touch  of  holy  water,  smell  of  incense, 
taste  of  the  wafer,  sound  of  music,  and  sight  of 
all  gorgeous  things,  are  her  recruiting  sergeants, 
sponsors  for  her  votaries,  and  sentinels  at  her 
gates.  A  late  traveller,  accustomed  to  our  sim- 
plest New-England  worship,  tells,  what  is  plain 
to  every  just  observer,  how,  in  a  Romish  cathe- 
dral in  Paris,  it  seemed  to  her  the  splendid  and 
noisy  spectacle  was  contrived  in  every  part  to 
draw  the  soul  away  from  itself,  so  that  it  could 
not  dwell  on  the  realities  revealed  within.  I 
will  not  undertake  to  say  what  proportion  of 
human  beings  are  in  so  sensuous  and  irrational 
a  state,  that  such  appeals  of  swinging  censers, 
choral  voices,  holy  crossings,  and  solemn  masses, 
alone  can  win  their  sacred  regard.  Let  us  be  at 
least  magnanimous  enough  to  allow  that  the 
same  mode  of  religion  cannot  affect  equally  all 
men.  Some  outward  mode  is  in  all  cases  neces- 
sary for  social  man.  The  question,  then,  is  not 
of  having  any  form,  but  of  the  sort  and  pro- 
portion of  form  ;  its  relation  to  the  Spirit ; 
in  short,  whether  our  very  forms  shall,  as 
they  may,  be  spiritual  or  not.  There  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  spiritual  form.     In  the  bread  and 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  11 

wine  of  the  Supper,  Jesus  meant  to  establish 
such  a  one :  for  how  earnestly  he  corrected  his 
disciples'  first  misapprehension,  of  eating  his 
flesh  and  drinking  his  blood,  by  declaring  the 
vital  and  spiritual  sense  of  his  words ;  thus  dis- 
allowing and  denouncing  beforehand  the  Romish 
superstition,  so  inveterate,  of  his  bodily  presence 
in  the  Eucharist !  The  form  of  a  man,  when  the 
man  is  intent  on  carnal  pleasure,  is  a  material 
form  indeed.  But  when  it  is  lighted  with 
thought,  and  sublimed  with  holy  love,  while  the 
meanings  of  the  heavenly  world  flash  frequent 
as  an  electric  summer  night  in  every  expres- 
sion, and  are  re-enforced  with  tones  of  inspira- 
tion, how  spiritual !  —  transfigured  as  truly  as 
Christ's  on  the  mountain. 

The  Spirit  itself  has  necessary  external  chan- 
nels, —  temples,  rites,  and  appointed  days,  —  as 
well  as  a  secret  apparition.  All  Christians  prac- 
tically own  the  need  and  value  of  some  sensible 
method  and  concerted  order  of  praise,  prayer,  and 
teaching,  for  united  and  affectionate  devotion. 
Nevertheless,  we  may  consistently  disown,  and 
discard  from  our  practice,  and  resist,  that  impo- 
sition of  the  pomp  and  excess  of  ritual  which 


12  THE   WORD    OF   THE  SPIRIT 

eclipses  the  hidden  Deity,  and  drowns  his  whis- 
per in  the  heart.  Indeed,  my  aim  in  this  essay 
is,  against  all  lower  judgments,  to  affirm  the 
existence  of  a  great  and  growing  number  in 
the  community,  for  whom  the  plainest  style  of 
adoration  is  the  best.  We,  Independents,  in 
our  dependency  on  God,  deny  that  any  more  of 
mechanism  and  repetition  and  symbolic  dis- 
play than  we  already  possess  and  use  is  need- 
ful or  would  be  profitable  for  ourselves  or  our 
children.  Men  are,  indeed,  still  too  gregarious. 
I  saw  the  foremost  in  a  flock  of  sheep  lately 
sidle  from  the  country  road,  and  leap  through  a 
ragged,  uncomfortable  gap  in  the  wall ;  and  no 
efforts  of  the  drivers,  with  whips  and  exclama- 
tions, could  keep  a  single  one  of  the  hundred 
from  leaping  through  at  the  very  same  place. 
It  is  astonishing  how  like  a  flock  of  sheep  we, 
with  all  our  nobler  humanity,  still  are,  as  we 
rush,  one  vast,  emulating,  imitative  crowd,  to  the 
exhibition,  the  parade,  the  play,  the  new  engine, 
the  balloon,  or  oration.  Let  us  not  overlook 
signal  advantages  in  this  excitable  sympathy, 
but  only  be  advised  of  the  mischief  it  must  work 
if  it  hinder  or  over  weigh  our  sublimer,  solitary 


NJ 


TO    THE   CHURCH.  13 

fellowship  with  God;  and  aver  the  legitimacy 
of  a  host  of  religious  believers,  whose  religion  is 
not  to  part  with  their  personality  in  the  closest 
accordance  of  their  prayers.  They  cannot  sur- 
render their  position.  They  are  far  enough  from 
being  the  majority  ;  but  they  ask  for  room  ! 

The  question  between  the  Church  and  the 
Spirit  is,  whether  corporate  power  shall  have 
undue  ratio  in  religion.  It  was  the  very  ques- 
tion between  Luther  and  the  pope.  Luther, 
shocked  with  the  iniquities  of  Eome,  as  John 
was  with  those  of  the  churches  in  Asia,  cast  off 
her  authority,  and  maintained  the  soul's  privi- 
lege of  immediate  access  to  God.  The  pope, 
the  cardinals,  the  councils,  said,  "  No:  the  Church 
is  between  the  soul  and  God,  vested  with  his 
authority.  You  cannot  come  to  it  or  have  it  by 
yourself  alone,  or  at  all,  save  through  our  rule." 
Here  was  the  battle.  It  is  very  commonly  sup- 
posed and  declared,  that  the  German  reformer 
fought  for  the  right  of  private  judgment.  This, 
as  the  best  scholars  now  appear  to  agree,  is  a 
great  mistake  of  his  design.  He  hardly  believed 
in  that,  or  was  true  to  it  if  he  did.  Later  than 
his  day  was  it  politically  vindicated,  if  not  dis- 


14  THE  WOKD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

covered.     Even  yet  we  grope  after  its  nature 
and  limits. 

But  the  sublimer  principle,  that  the  private 
soul  has  an  approach  to  its  Author  otherwise  and 
more  direct  than  through  the  church-door,  Lu- 
ther did  preach  and  exemplify,  and  conquer  the 
right  to  exemplify  and  preach ;  as  it  is  the  posi- 
tion on  which,  in  every  free  body,  as  our  Lord 
requires,  we  stand  and  build.     Is  it  said,  "  The 
Holy  Ghost  does  not  visit  the  private  soul "  ? 
I  might  reply,  Certainly  it  does  not  most  com- 
placently visit  the  unloving  soul,  unconscious  of 
its  dear  ties  with  other  members  of  the  Father's 
family,  if  I  did  not  remember,  that,  though  the 
loving  soul  alone  may  receive  it  abundantly,  it 
alone  can  quicken  the  dead  soul  to  love.     But 
to  insist  that  it  can  enter  these  inner  chambers 
of  the  bosom  only  through  the  material  courses 
of  our  formal  connection  with,  and  obeisance  to, 
some  external  organization,  is  to  revive  the  de- 
spotic claim  which  all  our  spiritual  ancestry,  with 
Jesus  at  the  head,  exploded ;    and  no   coming 
age,  according  as  it  is  virtuous  or  enlightened, 
can  abide.     We  are  Protestants  in  virtue  of  our 
negative  attitude  to  the  tyranny  that  would  pre- 


TO   THE    CHURCH.  15 

vent  our  positive  communion  with  our  Almighty 
Source,  and  our  share  of  all  the  riches  of  life 
and  love,  self-sacrifice,  toil  for  our  race,  and  hope 
of  immortality,  it  imparts.  A  draught  at  the 
fountain,  instead  of  the  lower,  muddy  stream,  is 
that  for  which  we  cry.  What  but  private  souls, 
astir  with  the  love  of  God  and  mankind,  and  so 
refreshing  their  powers  at  the  spring  of  all  good- 
ness, have  been  the  redeemers  of  the  church 
and  the  world?  In  how  many  a  single,  burning, 
prophetic  breast  God  has  chosen  his  peculiar 
battery  of  power ! 

But  will  any  one  inquire  again,  if  this  postu- 
late of  the  sole  authority  of  the  Spirit  does  not 
vacate  that  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  I  rejoin, 
It  is  the  very  and  only  authority  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  the  exact  authority  he  asserts  and 
enjoins.  Though  he  had,  as  he  said,  the  Spirit 
without  measure,  he  cites  the  Spirit  as  the  only 
sufficient  supply  for  all.  Before  the  glory  and 
infinity  of  the  Spirit  he  himself  how  meekly  re- 
tires !  How  he  affirms  his  individuality  to  be 
nothing  before  the  grandeur  of  its  revelation; 
tells  the  disciples,  the  Spirit  must  be  their  in- 
structor after  he  should  vanish  away;  and  de- 


16  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

clares  to  the  Pharisees  the  pardonableness  of 
speaking  against  him,  but  not  against  that  Spirit, 
which  was  the  very  power  of  the  All-Holy  and 
Eternal  One  !  How  his  lesson  for  all  the  world  is, 
that  to  be  born  of  that  Spirit,  whose  only  earthly 
semblance  is  the  strong  and  boundless  wind,  is 
every  mortal  nature's  urgent  and  inevitable  need  ! 
Theologians  have  disputed  about  the  procession 
of  the  Spirit,  — ■  whether  it  be  from  the  Father 
only,  or  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  He  who 
was  the  Son  countenances  no  subtle  reasoning 
about  what  he  takes  for  granted  in  its  vital 
force,  its  open  privilege  and  universal  oppor- 
tunity, in  the  possible  experience  of  every  child 
of  Him  who  to  each  asker  gives  himself,  in  won- 
derful communication,  more  freely  than  earthly 
parents  make  their  little  presents  of  bread  or 
raiment  or  gold.  The  doctrine,  that  there  is  for 
the  soul  no  authority  but  the  Spirit,  is  not  my 
doctrine,  but  that  of  Scripture  and  of  Heaven, 
and  of  him  whose  very  name  was  the  Word  of 
God ;  he  being,  indeed,  always  what  he  saw  and 
said. 

Undoubtedly  there  are  ways  and   means,  as 
well  as  "a  direct  illumination,  of  the  Spirit;  but 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  17 

the  Spirit  is  not  to  be  limited  to  ways  and  means 
of  any  name  or  kind  or  number.  What  the 
procession  of  that  Spirit  is,  when  it  began,  how 
far  it  goes,  how  many  minds  or  ages  it  includes, 
or  where  it  shall  end,  who  shall  tell?  Jesus 
did  not  commence  it ;  historical  Christianity  did 
not  create  it ;  it  is  uncreated.  All  its  prophets 
have  never  been  mentioned  to  us.  To  make  us 
more  sensible  of  it  is  the  office  of  our  faith.  I 
can  only,  in  a  few  poor  words,  indicate  its  pre- 
sence or  describe  its  work. 

I  beg  you,  my  reader,  to  consider,  then,  that 
there  is  something  in  you  beside  yourself.  There 
is  something  in  the  air  around  you,  not  of  the 
atmosphere,  which  the  chemist  cannot  solve. 
There  is  a  light,  not  of  the  sun,  lighting  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world.  There  is  a 
voice  beyond  that  of  man  or  nature,  gentler 
than  the  softest  whisper  in  counsel  to  us,  and 
louder  than  the  rending  thunder  in  our  remorse. 
There  is  a  feeling  of  present  divinity,  of  which 
we  are  never  quite  rid.  There  is  a  being  we 
are  conscious  of  above  our  own,  ordaining,  sup- 
porting, commanding,  awing,  consoling,  teach- 
ing, blessing  it.    In  our  solitude  there  is  another 


18  THE   WOED    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

with  us ;  and,  in  our  society,  One,  invited  or 
uninvited,  not  counted  in  the  list  or  written  on 
the  cards.  It  is  the  Spirit.  The  flash  of  truth 
in  you,  the  path  of  honor  pointed  before  you,  the 
impulse  of  justice  to  walk  therein,  your  act  of 
goodness,  your  abstinent  purity,  —  these  are  all 
from  it.  Your  thought  of  perfect  kindness,  may 
God  give  it !  —  your  flame  of  holy  love,  may  God 
kindle  it !  —  your  swifter  than  arrow's  flight  of 
ascending  prayer,  —  did  you  make  these  with 
your  cunning  contrivance,  your  curious  fingers, 
and  of  your  own  potent  will  ?  No :  the  Spirit 
breathed  them  into  you.  Part  and  parcel  of  the 
Spirit  they  are.  They  alone  are  intrinsic  evi- 
dence, that  all  your  ideas  of  a  great  Father's 
yearning,  of  a  higher  state  for  your  departed 
ones,  as  being  dearer  to  him  than  to  yourself, 
are  not  vanity.  I  did  not  make  my  love :  then  a 
higher  Love  made  it,  and  will  justify  it  for  ever. 
You  did  not  create  your  own  apprehensions  of 
Eternal  Purity  and  Goodness  :  you,  then,  may 
trust  and  hope  in  them,  spite  of  sorrow  and 
death,  to  enliven  and  save  and  keep  you  world 
without  end.  They  are  beams  which,  followed, 
must  bring  you  to  the  resplendent  orb.     They 


TO   THE    CHURCH.  19 

are  the  essential  stuff  of  which  the  universe  is 
formed,  without  which  there  would  be  no  uni- 
verse ;  and  in  them  you  are  immortal  and  ever- 
lasting. 

Proofs  and  confessions  of  this  abound.     They 
afford  the  most   touching   tales    of  all   history. 
Said  a  wise  minister,  giving  to  some  younger 
men   his    ordination-charge,  "  When  an  idea  of 
goodness  rises  in  you,  prize  it  beyond  whole  libra- 
ries of  learning.'7     Such  an  idea  is  more  worth 
than  all  books  and  Bibles.     Said  a  wife  to  her 
husband,  —  a  man  of  apocalyptic  imagination, 
like  John's,  he  was,  —  a  Why  do  you  pace  round 
the  room,  muttering  so  to  yourself?"  —  lL Be- 
cause/' he  humorously  answered,  "  I  like  to  talk 
to  a  prudent  person."     But  his  conference  may 
have  been  with  the  Holy  Ghost.     For  we  are  in- 
deed in  no  closet  or  desert  ever  alone.     There  is 
a  second  person  always ;  or,  rather,  each  one  of 
us  is  second,  and  that  first.    If  u  one  with  God  is  a 
majority,"  who  may  not  be  in  the  majority  when- 
ever he  wall ;  yea,  though  the  people  rage,  his 
friends  forsake  him,  and  public  opinion  crucify  ? 
Such  communion  is  not  always  divine.     A  man 
may  move  his  lips  thus  in  conference  strangely, 


20  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

when  Satan,  or  some  ill  demon,  is  his  consulting 
advocate  for  the  case  in  hand ;  but  the  Spirit  of 
our  Father  in  heaven  offers  itself  for  our  compa- 
nion and  the  mate  of  our  mind.  When  we 
accept  it,  it  is  the  only  authority  in  religion. 
There  is  no  contradiction  between  it  and  the 
lustre  of  Holy  Writ.  Its  accents  are  in  unison, 
as  he  assures  us,  with  the  word  of  our  Lord. 
All  solemn,  sincere  exercises  and  authentic  di- 
vine records  are  but  its  remembrances  and 
signs  and  precious  provocations.  To  refuse  it 
is  alone  to  be  faithless,  hopeless,  selfish,  and 
unforgiven. 

But,  do  you  say,  "  We  are  not  single  and  sepa- 
rate believers,  after  all :  we  are  a  church.  It  does 
not  signify  in  this  matter  what  passes  between  a 
man  apart  and  his  God.  Perhaps  there  is  no 
road  between  God  and  a  lonely  man.  Perhaps 
we  can  travel  into  heaven  only  through  each 
other's  hearts  !  How  does  this  Spirit  manifest 
itself,  seek  and  solicit  us  in  our  union  together  ?  " 
Truly  this  is  the  question.  "  In  no  disorderly, 
extemporaneous  way,"  say  a  host  of  our  fellow- 
Christians,  "  but  in  a  set  style  of  worship  and 
fixed  arrangement  of  words."     Not  thus  alone  or 


TO   THE   CHUKCH.  21 

chiefly,  I  reply.  I  will  not  deny  that  living  water 
can  run  in  canals,  or  stand  fresh  for  a  w^hile  in 
reservoirs,  like  the  huge  granite  one  yonder,  as 
well  as  bubble  from  fountains  and  flow  in  streams. 
But  that  it  is  any  better  water  for  its  confine- 
ment and  standing,  I  am  not  disposed  to  admit. 
That  it  may  become  stagnant,  who  does  not 
know  ?  That,  in  every  basin  and  service-pipe 
of  meeting-house  or  missionary  enterprise,  ex- 
cept for  its  mysterious  and  incalculable  supply 
from  the  cloudy  pavilion  of  God,  it  would  utterly 
give  out,  and  be  dryer  than  the  potsherd  Job 
scraped  himself  with,  or  than  the  ashes  among 
which  in  his  soreness  he  sat  down,  what  bigoted 
formalist,  save  in  utter  stupidity,  can  deny  ? 

But  it  is  alleged,  that,  among  dissenters  from 
the  Establishment,  the  tide  of  devotion  is  low,  if 
not,  indeed,  quite  run  out.  Does  not  a  noted 
Unitarian,  in  a  late  letter  from  abroad,  announce 
it  so  among  Unitarians  ?  Yes ;  and  how  many 
opponents  echo  and  reduplicate  the  charge  ! 
"  Oh  !  "  say  some  to  the  free  congregations,  with 
their  spontaneous  style,  "you  do  not  go  to  church 
for  worship  at  all,  but  to  hear  preaching,  and  see 
what  a  man,  called  by  courtesy  a  minister,  can 

2 


22  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

invent  with  his  genius,  if  he  have  any,  and  do  by 
himself.'7  But  must  not  a  man  or  men,  in  some 
sense,  speak  and  do  every  thing,  in  whatsoever 
convention  ?  Is  the  form  or  phrase  of  devotion, 
by  a  man  pronounced,  in  itself  more  holy,  I  won- 
der, than  the  periods  of  a  discourse  ?  What 
rescript  from  the  kingdom  ever  so  declared  it  ? 
Is  not  the  Spirit  at  liberty,  if  it  will,  to  take  the 
sermon,  too,  for  its  instrument,  and  pour  its 
treasures  of  celestial  feeling  and  spotless  pur- 
pose through  that  into  the  hearers'  minds  ?  Does 
it  not  often  flood  the  breast  with  love,  humility, 
and  new  resolve,  in  this  very  way  ?  Is  it  not 
more  likely  to  do  so  than  through  the  long,  mono- 
tonous repetitions  of  the  same  supplicatory  lan- 
guage, against  which  Jesus  warned  us,  so  apt 
to  become  mechanical  and  dead,  or  through 
homilies  more  lifeless  and  uninspired?  Is  not 
all  speech  of  truth  a  lowly  homage  and  bowing 
before  God?  Does  shutting  one's  eyes,  or  put- 
ting a  handkerchief  to  one's  forehead,  constitute 
devoutness?  Or  does  it  consist  in  stating  and 
accepting  the  divine  law  ?  Nay,  did  not  Jesus 
himself,  the  great  example,  preach  to  people, 
earnestly  and  at  length,  a  great  deal  more  than 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  23 

he  prayed  among  them?  Are  we  to  insult  him 
by  alike  rejecting  his  pattern  and  despising  his 
word?  No;  but  to  pour  and  welcome  religious 
affection,  adoration,  illumination,  through  hymn, 
address,  doxology,  benediction,  —  every  portion, 
however  administered,  of  this  real  drama  of 
knowledge  and  praise. 

u  But  the  minister  does  it  all,"  it  is  scornfully 
said  and  flung  at  the  congregational  style, 
wherein  there  is  no  general  reading  and  reciting 
as  in  a  monitorial  school.  Not  so,  I  maintain, 
need  or  should  it  be.  Not  so  is  it,  unless  to  our 
shame  !  Silent  as  a  worshipping  assembly  may 
be  in  that  living  quiet,  deep  as  the  hush  of 
death,  it  is  no  solitary  actor  that  is  engaged  in 
conducting  the  service.  Talk,  of  one  or  a  mul- 
titude, is  not  the  only  communion.  Many  a 
mute  listener  is  more  active  with  God  than 
sometimes  is  the  loud,  swaying,  perspiring 
figure  in  the  desk.  Gesticulation  and  noise  are 
not  activity  of  soul.  Often,  and  most  likely 
when  the  magazines  of  heaven  are  open  through 
the  minister's  mind,  ecstasy  of  consent  and  aspi- 
ration removes  every  barrier  of  the  pews.  Be- 
side the  lips  of  one  poor  mortal  man  that  are 


24  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

moving,  all  are  performing  their  part.  Each 
communicating  soul  in  the  attendant  multitude 
mingles  its  desires  and  confessions  in  the  ascrip- 
tion of  homage,  and  receives  the  answer  of 
direction  and  comfort  and  peace. 

The  Spirit,  then,  is  our  only  authority.  If  I 
were  going  to  name  a  church,  it  would  not  be 
Church  of  the  Trinity  or  Unity,  of  the  Disciples 
or  the  Episcopate,  of  Saints  or  Souls,  nor  even 
of  the  Messiah  or  Saviour,  dear  unspeakably  as 
these  titles  may  be  ;  but  of  the  Spirit  whence 
Messiah  and  Saviour  drew.  Be  we  apart  or  to- 
gether, let  us  mind  the  Spirit.  Let  us  look  and 
listen  for  it.  Let  us  meditate  and  pray  till  it 
arrive,  and  unveil  itself  to  cheer  us.  The  rea- 
son we  do  not  hear  and  receive  it  more  is  the 
tumult  we  are  in  of  other  things.  Late  at  night, 
some  time  ago,  six  miles  off,  I  stood  waiting  near 
the  tower  of  a  village-church.  The  clock  struck. 
The  mellow  vibration  continued  after  the  ham- 
mer stopped,  till  I  was  amazed  at  its  long  dura- 
tion. If  other  earthly  noises  are  not  allowed  to 
encroach  too  much,  the  Spirit,  with  sweeter 
tone  than  of  any  instrument,  will  continue 
sounding  in  our  souls. 


11  He  that  hath  an  ear,"  — that  is,  everybody, — 
**  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto  the 
churches."  We  all  have  an  ear,  deeper  than  of  the 
flesh,  hearkening  to  something  beneath  all  bells 
and  breezes,  tongues  or  outward  motions.  It  is 
the  dearest  desire  of  my  heart,  if  I  know  what  it 
is,  that  we  Congregationalists  should  be  a  church 
of  the  Spirit,  in  this  finer  hearing.  Our  service 
is  called  bare  and  meagre.  We  must  bear  the 
reproach.  Doubtless  the  sonorous,  priestly  in- 
toning and  responding  from  sabbath  to  sabbath 
of  the  same  idolized  words  (is  not  the  idolatry  of 
words  as  bad  a  violation  of  the  command  as  that 
of  graven  images  ?)  would,  in  the  weakness  of 
human  nature,  win  greater  crowds,  filling  the 
seats,  and  stir  them  to  a  more  vivid  superficial 
delight.  But  would  it  be  spiritual  and  profitable 
to  the  soul  ?  I  think  not ;  and  I  thank  God,  as 
a  Congregationalist,  for  our  joint  success,  and 
our  hope  still  to  prosper,  without  such  alluring 
accessories,  not  in  the  gospel,  which  might  con- 
vert people  to  us,  and  not  to  him.  Let  us  trust 
his  Spirit.  With  combined  and  separate  en- 
treaty, let  us  beseech  it.  In  our  life,  let  us  obey 
it.     For  the  building  of  our  character,  unseen 


26  THE   WOED    OF   THE  SPIRIT 

and  mysterious  as  it  is,  let  us  rely  on  it.  The 
stout  and  aged  woods  grow  from  invisible  gases 
of  earth  and  air.  Breathing  what  we  never  saw 
fashions  and  sustains  our  own  fearful  and  won- 
derful frame.  To  this  city  and  Jerusalem  of  our 
abode,  wide  acres  yonder,  pushing  out  the  tide, 
are  added  by  a  puff  of  transparent  steam,  turn- 
ing the  iron  wheels  that  roll  hills,  interior  and 
out  of  sight,  into  sea-side,  solid  plains  to  hold 
up  streets  and  dwellings  and  courts  of  the  Lord. 
Could  we  open  ourselves  to  the  working  of  that 
marvellous  force,  which  exceeds  all  the  elements 
of  nature  and  applications  of  art,  there  would  be 
a  moral  result  transcending  material  growth 
and  human  structures,  as  eternal  glories  shame 
the  triumphs  of  sense  and  of  time. 

IT.    There  is  an  Abuse  to  be  considered. 

I  have  stated  the  doctrine  of  Scripture  and 
reason,  that  the  Spirit  is  the  only  authority  in 
religion.  I  have  defined,  and  tried  to  vindicate, 
our  old  ancestral  position.  Are  we  worthy  the 
position  ?  In  the  Old-Testament  story,  the  ark 
of  the  Lord  was  held  by  ungodly  hands,  and 
the  anger  of  the  Lord  smote  the  holder  dead. 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  27 

So  many  professors  of  truth  come  short  of  the 
glory  of  their  trust.  We  pride  ourselves  in 
being  Liberal  Christians.  But  there  is  a  sort  of 
liberal  Christian  that  ought  to  be  disturbed. 
We  are  hot  in  our  liberality  against  rites  and 
creeds,  especially  exclusive  dogmas  of  fanati- 
cism, and  forms  of  the  High  Church.  •  We  call 
ourselves  spiritual.  I  am  not  insensible  of  the 
graces  of  many  of  the  spiritual  school.  In  their 
purity,  piety,  and  humanity,  they  are  among  the 
best  of  Christ's  witnesses  and  God's  children  on 
earth.  But  I  have  now  to  speak  of  the  disloyal 
or  defective  spiritualist,  whose  so-called  spiritu- 
ality is  an  abuse.  He  is  a  Liberal  Christian, 
graciously  accepting  the  name,  and,  in  the  coun- 
ter designation  of  Orthodoxy,  recognizing  only 
errors  from  which  he  revolts  ;  yet  he  is  of  very 
small  credit  to  his  own  faith.  He  seems  correct 
on  the  negative  side.  He  is  shocked  at  such 
notions  as  total  depravity,  moral  inability,  vica- 
rious punishment,  and  everlasting  woe.  He  is  a 
very  intellectual  man,  and  no  one  ever  accused 
him  of  a  want  of  sense.  He  is  a  keen  critic  of 
other  people's  mistakes,  little  as  he  applies  the 
knife,  violently  as  he  may  resist  its  application, 


28  THE   WOED    OF   THE   SPIEIT 

to  himself.  He  sees  the  truth  as  with  a  pro- 
phet's vision.  But  there  is  no  nerve  running 
from  his  eye  to  hand.  He  does  scarce  a  trifle  of 
the  truth  he  sees.  He  is  a  perfectly  religious 
man  in  theory.  He  acknowledges  the  beauty 
and  the  bond  of  every  divine  sentiment  and  law. 
But  he  wears  his  religion  quite  as  uncomfortably 
as  a  certain  man  I  knew  of  did  his  cork-leg, 
which  he  put  on  occasionally  because  it  helped 
him  to  get  along  to  his  office  through  the  street ; 
but  took  off  whenever  he  could,  because  it  made 
him  so  uneasy,  and  did  not  feel  like  part  of  him- 
self. 

*Ah  !  if  we  laid  aside  all  the  religion  we  use 
simply  to  further  us  through  this  world,  how 
much  should  we  have  left  ?  Let  us  remember 
the  fate  of  the  wood,  hay,  stubble.  How  tho- 
roughly our  gay  and  zealous  friend  of  theolo- 
gical progress  manages  to  forget !  Indeed,  this 
advocate  of  the  Spirit  is  a  singular  character. 
He  has  no  superstition,  and  no  devotion  either  ; 
he  is  no  bigot  and  no  enthusiast;  he  curses  no- 
body with  his  austerity,  and  blesses  nobody  with 
his  love ;  he  does  not  fear  God,  and  does  not 
truly  worship  him.     Very  often  he  is  a  respecta- 


TO    THE   CHURCH.  29 

able  man,  no  open  sinner,  commits  no  gross 
excess,  has  no  iron  fist  or  brazen  face  ;  but  all 
virtue  and  all  vice  alike  seem  with  him  to  sink 
and  disappear  in  some  vast,  empty  gulf —  like 
those  dry  pits  that  in  some  places  deform  the 
earth's  surface  • —  of  actual  indifference,  spring- 
ing from  philosophic  unconcern.  u  Am  I  that 
name?"  with  ineffable  tenderness,  in  the  play, 
asks  Desdemona,  when  her  real  sanctity  had 
been  so  unfairly  coupled  with  a  vile  term.  We 
have  plenty  of  ignominious  appellations  for  our 
opponents,  and  many  a  grand  and  noble  one  for 
ourselves.  Witness  our  sermons,  conversations, 
newspapers,  and  reviews,  in  which  so  easily  and 
cheaply  we  can  run  our  opponents  down,  and 
exalt  ourselves  to  the  skies  !  But,  when  we  use 
the  generous  title  spiritual  to  describe  our  own 
class  of  believers,  how  many  careless  and  worldly 
persons  among  us,  nominally  included  in  the 
class,  might  very  reasonably,  in  another  wTay, 
inquire,  "  Are  we  that  name  ?  "  No  ;  not  unless 
the  spirituality  goes  from  your  brain  to  your 
heart,  touches  your  countenance,  enriches  your 
voice,  and  hallows  every  member  of  your  body 
and  act  of  your  life  with  the  mighty  and  gentle 


30  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

manners  that  mark  the  children  of  God.  If  you 
be  but  a  voter  for  the  spiritual  faith,  a  retained 
lawyer  in  its  cause,  a  professor  of  the  heart,  with 
no  warm  heart  under  the  profession,  you  carry 
men  forward  no  more  than  does  a  painted  vehi- 
cle, and  praise  God  no  more  than  the  show-pipe 
on  the  organ. 

Therefore,  when  we  thus  hold  forth  the  Spirit 
as  the  only  authority,  we  must  not  be  surprised 
if  those  who  differ  from  and  narrowly  observe 
us  say,  in  scorn,  "Oh!  the  Spirit,  is  it?  That 
can  be  quoted  for  any  thing  !  "  Nor  is  it  a 
sufficient  reply,  though  proverbially  true,  that 
"the  Bible  can  be  quoted  for  any  thing;  as 
even  the  Devil  can,  and  in  human  shape  does, 
fetch  Scripture  to  justify  his  ends."  Let  us 
rather  honestly  confess  there  is  a  specious  and 
spurious  as  well  as  genuine  spirituality.  To 
spirituality  itself,  in  the  highest  point  of  new 
thought  and  original  excellence,  no  objection 
should  be  made.  Let  us  have  the  absolute  reli- 
gion of  which  so  much  is  said.  Of  Transcendent- 
alistSj  for  five  and  twenty  years,  we  have  been 
hearing.  Where  are  they?  A  Transcendentalist, 
I  suppose,  ought  to  be  a  person  who  transcends, 


TO   THE    CHURCH.  31 

exceeds,  other  people  in  wisdom  and  virtue. 
Let  us  have  transcendental  love  and  sanctity. 
Alas  !  the  misery  is,  that  our  transcendentalists 
are  so  many  of  them  no  transcendentalists,  but 
terribly  fail  to  enact  the  superior  mind  and  cha- 
racter they  preach.  The  famous  spirituality  of 
many  is  only  a  proposition,  not  a  fact. 

In  truth,  Christianity  itself  is  a  religion  far 
more  absolute  than  any  other  which,  under  such 
a  designation,  has  been  proclaimed.  Compare 
the  New  Testament  with  the  lectures  and  dis- 
courses in  these  days  delivered  to  supersede  it, 
and  judge  for  yourselves  !  Jesus  Christ  ivas 
the  wondrous  truth  and  goodness  of  which  he 
told.  In  his  disciples,  thus  far  in  the  world's  his- 
tory, the  manifesto  has  come  nearest  to  a  reality; 
and  no  man  has  proved  more  manly  or  divine  for 
fancying  he  had  outgrowTn  the  gospel.  When 
our  neighbors  propound  something  as  better 
than  that,  we  at  least  ask  the  privilege,  as  law- 
ful for  systems  as  for  articles  of  merchandise,  of 
inspecting.  In  the  mock-auctions  of  a  neighbor- 
ing metropolitan  city,  articles  of  jewelry  and 
gold  are  every  week  struck  off  at  what  to  the 
purchaser  seem  wonderfully  low  prices,  till  he 


\2  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

iearns  that  the  precious  metal  of  his  glittering 
new  time-piece  is  pinchbeck,  and  the  lustrous 
gem  cunning  paste.  Then,  on  his  complaint, 
lo !  what  screams  of  remonstrance  and  denial  to 
the  officers  of  justice  from  the  detected  auc- 
tioneer !  So  when,  by  some  searching  mind, 
dealers  in  the  counterfeits  of  moral  principle  are 
exposed,  how  they  resent  the  slander  of  their 
reputation,  and  outrage  on  their  sense  of  charac- 
ter and  self-respect  !  Nevertheless  is  it  needful 
to  guard  against  all  the  forms  which  the  bad  and 
hollow  spirituality  of  the  day  may  put  on. 

At  home  and  abroad,  the  cry  is  lifted,  that 
every  thing  in  these  times  we  eat  or  drink  or 
wear,  or  use  any  way  for  the  convenience,  com- 
fort, or  necessity  of  existence,  —  every  thing  is 
adulterated.  We  talk  of  the  order  of  the  day. 
Adulteration  is  the  order  of  the  day  in  our  great 
social  parliament  of  trade.  We  walk  by  the 
shop-window,  and  see  in  capital  letters,  on 
boxes  and  jars,  the  unblushing  pledge  of  a  parti- 
cular manufacture,  —  foreign  importation  from 
London,  Paris,  Vienna,  —  the  pretended  genu- 
ine composition  of  what  is  a  base  mixture,  a 
forgery,  and  a  poison ;  and  the  very  dealers,  in 


TO   THE    CHURCH.  33 

what  to  our  children  at  least  is  one  essential 
part  of  our  domestic  diet,  tell  us  now,  at  last, 
that  by  no  possible  efforts  of  theirs  can  they 
persuade  their  agents  even  to  let  us  have  the 
small  allowance  of  taking  our  milk  and  water 
separate  I  It  becomes  a  sober  investigation 
indeed,  when  we  must  withstand  the  worse 
foisting-in  of  untrue  types  of  spirituality. 

Some  of  these  I  proceed  to  name. 

The  first  is  the  negligent  type,  noticeable  in 
not  a  few,  who,  like  old  Gallio  in  Achaia,  care 
for  none  of  these  things.  They  thank  God,  and 
sacredly  swear  to  men,  that  they  are  emanci- 
pated from  the  heavy,  galling  yoke  of  creeds 
and  forms.  They  have  espoused,  for  their  part, 
the  simpler,  spontaneous,  congregational,  liberal 
worship.  But  do  they  value  and  support  the 
very  worship  they  have  espoused  ?  How 
much  ?  Two  hours  a  week  ?  Ah  !  —  following 
out  that  figure  of  espousal,  —  what  woman 
would  be  content  with  tokens  of  regard  only 
equal  to  those  they  pay  to  their  own  portion  of 
that  church  which  is  in  Scripture  called  the 
bride  of  Christ !  How  constant  is  their  attend- 
ance, and  how  earnest   their   attention  ?      Do 


34  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

they  neglect  even  the  simple  means  they  pos- 
sess ?  How  big  a  cloud  in  the  sky  does  it  take 
to  keep,  not  alone  the  sick  and  weak,  but  half 
the  congregation,  away  ?  Truly,  I  fear  that  is  a 
problem  it  would  cost  the  mathematical  chair  at 
Cambridge,  with  all  its  world-renowned  genius 
in  meteorology,  too  much  labor  to  solve  !  Why 
do  they  absent  themselves  ?  Because  there  is 
no  help  for  them  in  the  sanctuary  ?  And  mean- 
while, too  pious  for  these  courts,  are  they  in 
their  closets  and  on  their  knees  ?  Let  them 
answer  before  God  !  What  dress  must  they 
wear,  or  other  fashionable  circumstance  observe, 
wThen  they  appear?  How  much  heart  have 
they,  even  on  the  spot,  of  fellowship  with  their 
fellow-worshippers?  Does  it  astonish  and  pain 
to  hear  such  interrogations  from  the  lips,  per- 
haps, of  one  who  is  continually  charged  with 
being  too  mild  and  softly  exculpatory  of  every 
sin  in  his  discourse  ?  To  put  the  interrogations 
is  greater  pain  !  Very  pleasant  was  it  to  unfold 
the  principle  of  authority  as  being  in  the  Spirit 
alone,  but  a  strange,  unwelcome  work  to  inquire 
after  our  derelictions  from  it.  Yet  if  any  of  us  be 
selfish  individuals,  disconnected  particles  of  the 


TO    THE    CHURCH.  35 

common  soul,  united  in  no  bonds  of  affectionate 
communion,  but  rather  like  so  many  slippery  mar- 
bles, together  only  because  of  the  bag  or  vessel 
that  holds  them,  and  rolling  each  its  own  inde- 
pendent way  as  soon  as  released,  why  then  the 
coldest  ritualist  we  denounce  is  just  as  good  as 
we,  and  the  revivalist,  that  copies  the  engineer 
throwing  pitch  into  his  furnace,  has  more  claim 
to  respect,  sublime  as  may  be  the  maxims  of 
freedom  and  knowledge  and  toleration,  which, 
as  lights  of  the  world,  we  set  forth  !  Little  in 
the  judgment  of  God,  very  little  at  the  door  of 
heaven,  will  it  avail  a  worldly,  miserly,  and  icy- 
tempered  man,  that  he  cast  in  his  lot  with  the 
most  enlightened  and  advanced  denomination. 
You  who  are  anywhere,  in  village  or  city,  called 
a  society j  corporation,  parish,  churcli,  ask  your- 
selves what  mutual  ties,  strongly  binding  and 
gladly  owned,  correspond  to  these  names  ! 
What  vital  relation,  not  to  the  place,  the  pulpit, 
and  the  minister  alone,  but  to  each  other,  do 
you  sustain  ? 

But  again :  there  is  also  the  lax  as  well  as  the 
negligent  type  of  this  spurious  spirituality,  of 
which  we  should  beware.     It  is  no  new  thing  for 


36  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

those,  thinking  themselves  saved  by  their  own 
faith  or  by  grace  from  on  high,  to  imagine 
their  morals  no  essential  matter.  "  We  need  a 
preacher  yet  to  come/7  said  one,  "  to  inculcate 
simple  morals  !  "  What  theories  about  the  indul- 
gence of  the  appetites,  the  relations  of  the  sexes, 
the  obligations  of  the  married  state,  and  all  the 
show  and  luxury  and  pride  of  life,  —  yea,  under 
the  color  of  a  more  elevated  and  spiritual  condi- 
tion, —  prevail  among  many,  who  have  adopted 
the  spiritual  principle,  in  the  sense  at  least  of 
throwing  off  all  the  bondage  and  law  of  the  let- 
ter !  Truly,  by  such,  not  only  all  bonds  are  dis- 
owned, but  all  liberties  taken. 

Manifold  are  the  demonstrations  of  this  ini- 
quity and  disease.  It  is  a  grief  to  allude  to  the 
flippant  vanity  with  which,  for  example,  shallow- 
hearted  persons,  in  print  or  talk,  declaim  against 
faulty  popular  patterns  of  adoration  and  duty, 
while  they  themselves,  by  no  grand  or  lowly 
trait,  furnish  the  least  recommendation  of  a  finer 
standard.  Because  they  are  free  from  some 
groundless  terrors  and  old  slaveries  of  inherited 
opinion,  they  conceive  they  are  better  than  any 
hero  of  an  evangelical  missionary  or  Catholic 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  37 

saint  of  the  calendar,  —  any  Judson  or  Fen^lon  : 
as  though  some  smooth  popinjay  of  a  play- 
thing should  in  its  levity,  as  it  makes  little 
noise,  be  praised  up  for  a  grander  utensil  than 
the  huge  engine  that  creaks  and  groans  with 
its  ancient  service;  or  some  new-painted  plea- 
sure-yacht of  feasters  on  their  trip  down  the 
harbor  be  preferred  to  the  ship,  the  ugly  barna- 
cles on  whose  bottom  show  her  voyage  through 
distant  deeps;  or  to  the  "  Great  Eastern/'  because 
an  explosion,  not  shattering  her  bulk,  has  oc- 
curred in  part  of  her  works  !  To  slough  off  the 
dead  skin  of  old  habit  may  be  well ;  but  for  a 
spiritual  religion,  I  apprehend,  real  qualities  are 
required.  If  there  were  no  life  or  beauty  under 
the  skin,  why  need  a  creature  be  rid  of  it 
at  all? 

It  is  a  bitterness  to  the  soul  when  educated 
literary  or  scientific  men  fail  of  that  bowing  be- 
fore the  Supreme  Being,  and  obeying  of  his  law, 
which  is  the  only  crown  of  other  attainments, 
however  splendid.  Without  it,  other  attain- 
ments are  next  to  nought.  It  is  almost  a  dis- 
couragement to  faith  itself  to  read  the  page  of 
some    English,   German,   American   critic,   and 

3 


38  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

have  to  say  to  him,  u  Your  objections  are  well 
put ;  but  where  are  the  sweetness  and  humanity 
which  should  wait  on  your  views,  so  enlarged  ? 
Why  this  towering  arrogance  and  jealous  am- 
bition instead  ?  You  renounce  the  bad,  and 
acquire  not  the  good ! w  It  would  seem  as  if  we 
could  have  no  leaders  among  us  in  this  country 
who  are  not  egotists.  It  is  alarming  to  see,  in 
any  shape,  that  worst  paradox  and  monster 
chiefly  generated,  as  the  ethical  geologist  would 
tell  us,  in  the  most  recent  periods,  the  unspiritual 
spiritualist. 

11  Are  there  any  spirits  present  ?  v  is  the  ques- 
tion regularly  put  in  the  circles  of  which  we 
hear  so  much.  I  will  not  say  it  is  a  question  of 
sheer  nonsense  and  pure  folly.  Fbelieve  spirits 
of  the  departed,  good  or  bad,  may  be  present. 
Whether  they  communicate  or  not  in  the  way 
supposed,  is  indeed  another  affair.  Of  that  I  am 
yet  to  be  convinced;  although  I  would  rather 
credit  the  coarsest  spiritualism  thoughtful  men 
question  and  our  wiseacres  curse  than  be  one  of 
those  many  Sadducees,  believing  in  neither 
angel  nor  spirit,  who  perhaps  crowd  so  after  the 
best  places  and  sweetest  morsels  of  all  earthly 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  39 

good,  because  they  expect  or  possess  no  hea- 
venly !  But  certainly,  without  waiting  at  the 
table  for  rapping  or  writing,  for  mysterious  lights 
or  incomprehensible  motions,  to  the  question  it- 
self, "  Are  any  spirits  present  ?  "  we  may  answer, 
M  Ay,  the  Spirit  you  perhaps  little  thought  of, 
the  Spirit  of  God,  is  present ;  and  all  spirits  be- 
side in  the  universe  cannot  eclipse  it,,  and  should 
not  put  it  out  of  mind  ! "  That  Spirit,  glorious 
in  majesty,  wondrous  in  praises,  though  not 
grossly  manifested,  as  it  cannot  be  to  mortal 
sense,  never  goes.  It  abides  to  rebuke  every 
carnal  way  into  which  our  shining  premises 
licentiously  open,  and  to  call  us  into  paths  of 
purity,  honor,  and  peace.  I  have  no  liking  for 
a  long  and  rigid  face  of  pietism.  I  account  the 
thought  of  God  a  cheerful  and  smiling  thing. 
But  I  say,  better  belong,  like  Saul  before  his 
conversion,  to  the  "  most  straitest  sect "  now  of 
our  religion,  than  take  a  loose  privilege  of  being 
deaf  to  that  Holy  Spirit's  word ! 

But  of  this  pseudo-spiritualism  one  species 
remains,  that  ought  to  be  named  distinctively 
by  itself:  I  mean  the  vindictive.  This  is  the 
proudest,  most  pretending,  and  plausible  of  all. 


40  THE   WOED    OF   THE   SPIEIT 

Nay,  it  begins  with  most  sincerely  attempting 
the  reform  of  every  evil.  But  the  mighty  enter- 
prise, through  the  mingling  of  unworthy  human 
passions,  becomes  gradually  inflammatory  and 
inordinate  in  its  steps.  The  vindictive  spiritual- 
ist not  only  scourges  the  sin :  he  denounces  the 
sinner;  gives  him  no  quarter;  pursues  him  in 
public  as  well  as  in  private,  by  name,  and  in  the 
sharpest  and  most  scorching  terms.  With  out- 
stretched, contemptuous  finger,  he  points  at 
rents,  which  we  all  have,  in  the  robes  of  his 
fellow-creature,  forgetting  there  may  be  in  his 
own,  however  handsome -looking  coat,  holes 
larger  and  worse,  if  not  the  same  ;  and,  though 
he  be  free  from  the  numerous  transgressions  he 
lashes,  his  very  lashing  may,  and,  if  without  kind 
affection  of  which  he  gives  small  proof,  will, 
become  in  the  sight  of  God  more  odious  than 
them  all.  "  You/7  said  one  to  his  friend,  who  dis- 
claimed certain  habits,  —  "  you  have,  then,  none 
of  these  vices  of  smoking  and  drink?"  —  "  No/7 
was  the  reply  ;  "  but  that  old  Serpent,  the 
Devil,  that  crept  into  paradise,  may  creep  into 
my  soul  through  some  one  large  passage,  as  well 
as  through  many  smaller  apertures." 


TO   THE   CHUKCH.  41 

A  man's  self-deception  in  his  malignity  and 
revenge  is  space  enough  to  let  in  the  entire  reti- 
nue of  the  adversary.  To  stick  knives  or  pins 
into  the  flesh  is  not  considered  kind.  Is  it  more 
kind  studiously  to  hurt  and  torment  the  feelings 
of  the  mind  ?  No :  this  is  a  bad  quality.  It  is 
made  up  of  conscience,  conceit,  and  hate,  with- 
out divinity  or  love.  This  vindictive  mood  is 
confined  to  no  one  party.  Every  one  shows  it 
who  does  not  love  in  his  heart  the  very  antago- 
nist he  blames.  It  does  not  signify  whether  it 
is  the  conservative,  who  has  sometimes  declared 
that  he  would  like  to  drive  the  antislavery  man, 
the  reformer,  like  a  brute  through  the  street, 
and  would  not  interfere,  or  throw  him  a  rope,  if 
he  were  in  the  water,  to  save  him  from  drown- 
ing ;  or  the  radical,  who  for  ever  girds  at  the 
dead  dissenter  from  his  thought,  or,  with  angry 
voice  and  spiteful  pen,  insults  gray  heads  that 
are  crowns  of  glory,  if  we  have  any  on  earth, 
among  the  living.  On  both  sides,  it  is  anti- 
spiritual,  or,  if  spiritual  at  all,  not  after  a  hea- 
venly sort,  but  that  of  the  place  otherwise 
entitled  and  described.  Speaking  without  per- 
sonality, there  is  a  combative  character,  liable 


42  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

to  its  own  sins.  The  American  prize-fighter  is 
not  the  only  bully  ;  the  Italian,  who  sells  his 
dagger,  is  not  the  only  bravo:  there  may  be 
duellists  without  swords  or  pistols,  and  an  assas- 
sin with  no  club  or  knife.  I  have  seen  one  hunt 
his  adversary,  m.  full  view  of  the  common  eye, 
for  a  special  foible  or  bad  habit,  till  I  thought 
the  vengeful  pursuit  of  any  crime  or  sin  the 
worst  of  all  crimes  and  sins ;  for  if,  imitating 
the  style  of  the  naturalist,  we  should  essay  a 
new  classification  of  offences,  we  should  have  to 
put,  not  sensuality  or  bribery,  bad  as  they  are, 
but  cruelty,  that  cuts  coolly  in  two  a  fellow- 
man's  heart,  at  the  head. 

The  self-appointed  sheriff  and  volunteer  exe- 
cutioner in  the  spiritual  world,  like  the  Hebrew 
avenger  of  blood,  runs  swift  and  eager  after  his 
victim,  with  thrust  and  sneer,  and  laughter- 
provoking  gibes  of  no  good-humored  kind.  But 
he  does  not  resemble  the  Christian.  Oh  !  how 
far  is  he  from  the  Christ !  God  be  thanked  for 
him,  once  in  the  flesh,  and  his  image  ever  in  the 
world !  So  sadly  tender  as  well  as  awfully  solemn 
he  was,  even  in  what  are  called  his  denuncia- 
tions !    But  bitter  and  inhuman  are  the  sentences 


TO   THE    CHURCH.  43 

on  guilt  of  those  Pharisees,  ancient  and  modern, 
for  whom  to  be  pleased  is  to  persecute.  God 
save  us  from  being  of  that  vindictive  class  of 
the  falsely  spiritual,  whose  pleasure  is  in  their 
satire  !  God  deliver  me  from  any  satisfaction, 
God  smite  me  with  a  holy  distress,  in  portraying 
their  mistakes  in  periods  I  abbreviate  as  much 
as  I  can  !  God  pardon  us  all  our  partaking  of 
such  guilt !  We  recoil  at  the  theological  conceit, 
that  the  redeemed  in  glory  find  their  comfort  in 
the  torments  of  the  lost.  But  I  know  not  that 
it  is  any  better  to  enjoy  tormenting  the  life  or 
maligning  the  repute  of  our  fellow-men  on  earth, 
than  to  delight  in  seeing  their  misery  beyond 
the  grave.  Surely  nothing  but  the  hope  of 
defending  some  against  the  abuse  of  this  su- 
preme doctrine,  of  the  Spirit  our  only  authority, 
could  have  persuaded  me  to  the  scrutiny  of 
morbid  symptoms  I  have  made.  May  the  Spirit 
itself  of  God  and  our  Father  defend  us,  guide 
and  heal ! 

III.    The  Eemedy. 

Be  it  said  first,  respecting  the  abuse  of  their 
own  doctrine  in  the  spiritual  school,  it  is   all 


44  THE  WORD    OP   THE   SPIRIT 

told  by  themselves.  However  other  orders  of 
Christians  may  disclose  or  conceal  their  trou- 
bles, these  people  certainly  make  a  clean  breast. 
Little  they  heed  Napoleon's  pithy  proverb  of 
"  doing  our  washing  at  home."  Rather  they  point 
to  the  soil  on  their  garments,  and  ingenuously 
describe  every  vain  attempt  at  its  removal. 
Such  confession  is  never  a  signal  of  the  worst. 
Even  the  self-imputation  of  a  want  of  faith,  into 
which  a  brave  brother  articulates  manifold  whis- 
pers of  doubt,  must  be  taken  with  this  grain  of  a 
salt  that  has  not  lost  its  savor.  This  quality  of 
the  lowly  and  praying  publican  should  never 
discourage  us.  Good  and  saintly  men  will  always 
lament  the  coldness  or  decline  of  religion.  The 
world  is  to  them  ever  half  a  ruin.  Said  a  dis- 
tinguished Baptist  to  me  lately,  "  I  consider 
piety  everywhere  at  a  low  ebb."  Before  the 
glorious  and  soaring  ideal,  by  which  we  are 
tantalized  and  rebuked,  our  actual  faith  hangs 
behind,  as  from  its  swift  motion  streams  back 
the  comet's  train  of  light. 

The  account  of  the  evil  is  itself  a  great 
exaggeration.  It  is  a  mistake  for  even  sacred 
sorrow  to  become  excessive,  inspire  distrust  of 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  45 

sound  premises,  and  paralyze  exertion  by  run- 
ning into  despair.  A  tender  conscience  always 
overrates  the  evil  in  the  world.  The  abso- 
lute grief  at  transgression  and  defect  may  not 
be  inordinate,  yet  its  relative  statement  may 
miss  the  mark  of  general  truth.  Courage  against 
the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  Devil  with  all  his 
hosts,  is  every  sincere  man's  rightful  and  only 
starting-point.  "  Fear,"  well  said  one,  "  is  no 
argument."  What  is  it,  even  connected  with 
the  ablest  intellect,  but  Polyphemus  in  his  cave, 
—  power  without  sight?  Let  us  not  suspect 
the  spiritual  principle,  whatever  monster  may 
come  pretending  to  be  its  child,  nor  compromise 
it  by  confounding  its  legitimate  operation  with 
its  abuse.  If  a  man  issues  a  book,  or  makes  a 
speech,  containing  more  gall  than  belongs  to 
a  healthy  system,  and  puts  it  on  the  spiritual 
ground,  let  us  not  desert  that  ground,  but  in- 
quire whether  he  fairly  occupies  it.  Let  nothing- 
scare  us  from  laying  our  emphasis  still  on  the 
Spirit.  It  is  our  only  hope.  It  has  sure  healing 
for  every  sickness  of  the  soul.  As  to  unbelief, 
where  does  every  test  show  its  centre  to  be  ? 
Verily,  not  in  the  Protestant  part  of  Christendom, 


46  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

but  in  Rome  !  The  last  dot  of  the  telegraph  tells 
of  its  fearful  spread  among  the  youth  of  Italy. 
The  French  About,  with  his  essay  on  the  Roman 
question,  is  but  one  of  a  thousand  witnesses. 

Yet7  at  every  hint  of  unsatisfied  hunger  on 
the  rationalist  side,  how  the  mother-church  — 
settled  on  her  seven  hills  —  lifts  and  a  little  flut- 
ters her  wings,  as  if  to  receive  under  them  more 
of  her  wayward  brood  !  She  offers  us  her  vote 
in  exchange,  if  we  will  give  up  our  immediate 
reliance  on  the  grace  of  God.  Let  ns  decline 
the  proxy  ! 

For,  next,  let  it  be  said  to  her,  that  unbelief 
itself  is  not  always  bad  or  wrong.  If,  from  the 
midst  of  the  scepticism  that  secretes  itself  under 
her  huge  cover,  she  sneers  at  the  doubts  that  go 
along  with  our  liberty,  —  as  the  Bible  tells  us 
our  liberty  goes  along  with  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord,  —  let  us  reply,  that  these  very  doubts  may 
have  a  good,  certainly  not  a  quite  melancholy, 
account  of  themselves  to  give.  The  divinity- 
student,  who  went  to  the  elder  Henry  Ware 
mournfully  to  own  that  he  was  troubled  with 
doubts,  was  astonished  at  the  good  man's  reply, 
that  he  had  certainly  made  much  progress  if  he 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  47 

had  got  so  far  as  to  doubt !  Of  the  very  doubts 
in  question,  incident  in  these  days  to  the  exer- 
cise of  our  rational  nature,  we  ask,  Whence  do 
they  arise  ?  In  part,  at  least,  from  the  sublime 
process,  in  the  light  of  growing  science  and 
experience,  not  of  dissolving,  but  enlarging, 
the  idea  of  God.  This  is  to  be  the  religious 
glory  of  the  coming  age,  —  a  better  idea  of  God ! 
Our  children's  eyes  will  see  it,  if  ours  do  not. 

The  old  Hebrew  Jehovah,  sitting  on  a  throne 
of  jealous  power  and  favoring  a  particular  race, 
does  not  meet  the  need  of  an  expanding  hu- 
manity. The  invention  of  a  threefold  Deity,  to 
correct  that  ancient  narrowness,  jars  on  the 
unity  shining  everywhere  in  the  world  and  from 
the  human  soul.  The  staggering  of  the  mind,  in 
arriving,  through  its  own  upward  motion,  at  the 
conception  Jesus  preached  of  an  infinite  and 
universal  Father,  must  not  be  branded  as  dis- 
belief. Even  any  temporary  alienation  of  in- 
telligence into  atheism  must  be  greatly  laid  to 
the  charge  of  superstition.  If  the  scientific 
understanding  in  some  quarters  of  the  world 
wanders  from  the  faith,  theological  bigotry  in 
other  quarters  debases  it ;  and  who  shall  decide 


48  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

which  is  worse  ?  How  boldly  Bacon  says,  u  It  is 
better  not  to  think  of  God  at  all,  than  to  think  ill 
of  him  "  !  Certainly,  better  think  or  speak  of  him 
faintly  than  foully.  If  Humboldt  is  silent  about 
the  Cause  of  all,  it  may  be  because  he  cannot 
accept  the  popular  divinity,  and  like  Gothe  in 
the  famous  passage  about  the  Deity,  in  "  Faust/' 
sees  a  glory  he  knows  not  how,  or  is  too  lowly, 
to  name. 

Once  more :  be  it  observed  that  these  remarks 
are  made,  not  from  any  wish  to  deny  the  abuse 
of  the  doctrine  of  spiritual  authority,  but  to 
bespeak  a  just  estimate  and  candid  considera- 
tion. We  may  deny  any  suspense  of  faith  in 
Christendom,  especially  in  its  Protestant  part ; 
we  may  question  if  faith  ever  did,  or,  on  a  great 
scale,  can  suspend ;  we  may  affirm  that  the  Son 
of  man,  coming  now,  would  find  it  abundant 
as  never  before  on  the  earth ;  yet,  we  must  as 
yet  add,  in  what  mixture  of  imperfection  and 
sin  !  Too  plainly  we  behold  the  evil  not  to  be 
anxious  for  a  remedy.  Alas  !  thousand-fold  is  the 
brood  of  speculative  vagaries  and  practical  mis- 
chiefs named  spiritual,  and  fathered  upon  God  ! 
How  extricate  ourselves  from  this  confusion,  in 


TO   THE   CHUECH.  49 

which  the  banner  of  Heaven  floats  over  its  foes  ? 
When  a  vessel  on  the  high  seas  is  suspected  of 
sailing  under  a  false  flag,  a  speaking-trumpet,  a 
blank  cartridge,  a  shotted  gun,  may  bring  her  to. 
How  fetch  to  judgment  the  pirates  of  the  land, — 
suiting  their  several  latitudes  with  as  many  sets 
of  colors  as  do  the  rovers  of  the  sea  ?  It  may 
be  answered  in  general,  The  Spirit  itself  is  the 
great  detective  of  all  forgeries  of  its  speech. 
"  Diamond  cut  diamond/7  we  say,  with  more 
meaning  in  the  words  than  we  may  apprehend. 
The  true  diamond  alone  can  expose  the  false. 
Before  the  Spirit,  only,  no  moral  counterfeit  can 
stand.  "  The  spiritual  man  judgeth  all,  and  is 
judged  of  none,"  how  truly  says  Paul  to  this 
very  point !  We  very  soon  see  the  spirit  a  man 
is  of,  and  successful  deception  is  less  common 
than  we  suppose. 

It  may  be  said,  "  This  is  true  for  the  private 
soul ;  but  what  is  the  remedy  in  the  "church  ?  " 

First,  not  formalism.  It  is  a  chief  sign  of 
the  times,  how  much  ability,  benevolence,  and 
knowledge  move  for  relief  in  this  direction  of 
more  form  in  religion.  But,  alas  !  how  often  to 
how  little   purpose   this  direction  has   already 


50  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

been  taken !  The  annals  of  the  church,  by 
unhappy  precedents,  are  put  in  the  way  of  its 
progress.  Undoubtedly,  its  vital  unity  is  to  be 
traced  and  maintained  ;  but  of  how  many  a 
phase  and  incident  in  its  course  is  made  a  bad 
example  !  what  imperfection  in  the  past  con- 
founds or  retards  perfection  in  the  future  !  and 
how  mean  is  the  inspiration  of  history  to  that 
of  God  !  When  the  traditionist  points  us  to 
some  old  judgment  for  a  present  argument,  how 
often  we  can  hardly  help  saying,  "What  a  pity  he 
is  so  learned  ! M  Scholarship  itself  is  a  hinder- 
ance,  if  by  it  the  Spirit  is  made  secondary,  or  kept 
out.  Not  what  habitually  the  church  has  done  or 
the  race  has  done,  but  what  the  Lord  will  have 
us  to  do,  is  for  ever  the  first  question.  True, 
the  majority  of  men  are  but  partially  amenable 
to  rational  words  :  they  must  be  taught  by 
pictures  and  ceremonies,  whose  veneration  is 
but  one  step  from  idols  of  wood  and  stone.  But, 
before  the  dawn  of  reason,  the  temple-scenery 
dwindles  and  disappears.  If  retained,  it  becomes 
pageantry  and  hypocrisy  to  thoughtful  minds. 
To  return  to  it,  as  a  medicine  for  the  uncertainty 
of  enlightened  men,  is  to  offer  to  their  wounds  the 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  51 

very  blocks  over  which  they  stumbled.  u  Fishers 
of  men,"  Jesus  called  his  disciples  ;  but  all  men 
are  not  to  be  taken  in  the  same  manner.  From 
the  nets  fitted  to  take  some  fish  in  the  sea;  others 
swim  away ;  and  cultivated  persons  in  this  age 
can  rarely  be  caught  in  any  ritual  mesh.  The 
teachers  of  such  must  beware  of  overlooking 
the  illuminated  quality  of  the  constituency  they 
are  born  of  and  bound  to  lead.  They  must 
maintain  modest  customs  of  worship,  not  as  the 
vital  organs,  of  which  they  are  but  decent 
robes. 

Moreover,  Jesus  himself  proposes  no  great 
organization  as  factor  or  physician  of  his  dis- 
ciples. His  church  was  no  officered  or  official 
corps,  but  a  living  fellowship  of  faith  and  love. 
Every  visible  band  in  it  is  by  him  put,  not  in,  but 
under,  authority.  One  great  stream  of  power 
behind,  all  else  in  the  world  is  but  reception, 
instrument,  and  propagation.  If  it  be  said,  "Au- 
thority is  not  attributed  to  any  little  section,  but 
to  the  general  church,"  we  must  reply,  There 
is,  indeed,  a  general  church ;  but  it  is  mostly 
invisible.  Its  numerical  suffrage  is  beyond  our 
reach  :  no  creed  or  council  ever  gave  it.     Fifty 


52  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

generations  of  it  are  in  heaven.  According  to 
its  sanctification,  it  approaches  to  identity  with 
the  mind  of  the  Spirit.  But  its  appliance  to  our 
need  is  less  appropriate  and  less  accessible  than 
that  of  the  Spirit  itself,  that  waits  and  knocks, 
and  is  ready  to  come  in. 

Certainly  I  propose  no  quarrel,  for  I  have  no 
discontent,  even  with  ijie  High  Church,  in  its 
place.  I  would  not  unchurch,  by  unspiritualizing, 
the  church  itself,  or  any  part  of  it,  further  than 
it  is  unspiritualized  in  fact.  I  know  well,  and 
greatly  honor,  the  numerous  and  often  splendid 
examples  of  Romish  and  Episcopal  piety.  Better 
Christians  have  seldom  been  made  than  in  those 
communions.  We  should  only  oppose  the  as- 
sumption, that  any  ecclesiastic  ritual  is  more 
than  a  local  expedient,  has  any  binding  authority 
for  all,  or  is  good  beyond  certain  very  strict 
limits ;  and  let  us  do  so,  with  regret,  somewhat  on 
the  ground  of  that  liability  to  corruption  which 
so  manifestly  qualifies  its  value  where  it  is  used. 
Alas  !  how  often  its  majestic  line  becomes  a  me- 
chanical phrase !  so  that  one,  hearkening  in  great 
foreign  cathedrals  to  the  performer's  tone  of 
mere  memory  stereotyped  in  his  voice,  sometimes 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  53 

sadly  feels  how  little,  in  any  touch  of  spontane- 
ous emotion,  it  varies  from  the  metallic  note,  in 
which  the  bird  called  a  mino  salutes  us  with  the 
amiable,  wearisome,  and  hundred-fold  repetition,, 
from  the  perch  of  his  gilded  cage.  An  eye- 
witness tells  me  he  saw  in  St.  Petersburg  little 
children,  taught  to  go  through  a  manual  of  de- 
votion  of  which  they  could  have  no  sense,  who,, 
as  they  rose  from  the  forced  bodily  conformity 
of  prayer,  fell  to  playing  with  the  silver  and 
malachite  railing  of  the  temple.  Which  was  most 
acceptable  to  God,  —  their  ignorant  homage,  or 
their  innocent  play  ?  We  have  been  told  that 
the  impersonal  sort  of  utterance  —  after  the 
peculiar,  well-known  style  of  the  set  periods 
of  prayer  —  strains  the  voice  itself  more  than 
the  natural  tones  of  any  preaching.  What  could 
more  decisively  prove  it  vicious  ?  Doubtless,, 
solemn  recitation  of  hallowed  texts  and  clauses,, 
to  some  extent,  especially  on  the  recurrence 
of  great  experiences  of  human  life,  may  actr 
like  a  galvanic  series,  to  confirm,  by  multipli- 
cation, the  deepest  feeling.  It  would,  however, 
seem  almost  as  though  the  sentences  them- 
selves, when  so  perpetually  brought  forth  after 

4 


54  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

uniformly  equal  periods  of  time,  might  complain, 
like  tired  soldiers,  of  being  too  often  put  upon 
duty '! 

Of  course,  we  must  not  deny  the  proportion 
and  choice  of  comparative  good  and  evil  from 
opposite  modes  in  this  matter.  The  advocate  of 
the  spiritual  way  should  not  blink  the  arguments 
that  still  remain  for  a  liturgy :  its  re-acting  from 
the  people  to  the  priest ;  uniting  all  in  the  same 
words ;  with  its  easy-chair  equalizing  the  clergy, 
in  their  gifts  or  without  gifts ;  coming  a  precious 
heirloom  from  the  past,  and  spinning  on  the 
thread  of  religious  unity  to  new  generations ; 
familiarizing  the  young  early  to  devout  expres- 
sion ;  and  being  at  least  an  alphabet  of  prayer 
for  the  yet  spiritually  lisping  majority  of  men. 
But  here  is  the  point :  that,  for  a  large  and  most 
important  minority,  it  clearly  will  not  answer  or 
serve  ;  not  because  they  are  blasphemers,  but 
because  their  devotions  find  in  it  no  sufficient 
aid.  The  attempt  to  join  it  with  the  free  tones 
of  prayer  is  a  failure  :  the  liturgy  eats  up  the 
liberty,  or  the  liberty  the  liturgy ;  and  whenever 
the  soul  rises  into  transport  of  fellowship  with  the 
Father,  repetition  of  appointed  periods  will  seem 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  55 

to  it  as  impertinent  as   reading   our  love   for 
earthly  kindred  to  them  out  of  a  book. 

Besides,  the  liturgical  is  not  our  lawful,  he- 
reditary manner.  Our  Pilgrim  sires,  when  they 
broke  from  it,  not  only  consulted  their  own 
necessity,  bflt  prescribed,  prophetically,  for  the 
wants  of  a  multitude  of  the  best  of  mankind.  In 
some  of  our  churches,  and  in  our  old  University, 
there  seems,  indeed,  to  be  a  receding  from  their 
judgment,  and  a  conscientious  affecting  of  the 
opposite  style,  as  likely  to  reclaim  the  erratic 
temper  of  the  time.  It  is  a  course  dubious  of 
reaching  the  result  at  which  it  aims ;  and  if,  as 
is  pretended,  spirits  with  significant  tokens  re- 
appear, the  ghosts  of  our  ancestry  may  certainly 
be  expected  to  communicate  on  this  point. 

No  effectual  specific,  then,  can  be  found  in 
what  were  called  "  the  ornaments  of  religion  n 
three  hundred  years  ago,  but  have  in  them  no 
soul-penetrating  virtue,  and  will  never  generally 
be  resumed  by  such  as  have  once  laid  them 
aside,  and  really  tasted  of  better  things.  To 
the  ritual  remedy,  there  is  objection  enough 
in  the  very  fact,  that  its  emphasis  is  on  the 
church,  above  the  Spirit.     Where  the  church 


56  THE   WOKD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

is  the  first  word,  or  the  most  frequent,  and 
the  Spirit  second,  and  more  seldom  used,  what 
departure  from  both  Scripture  and  reason  could 
be  more  wide  and  plain? 

Nor,  next,  in  places  where  the  gospel  has 
been  published  and  is  regularly  proclaimed,  will 
it  do  to  rely  on  advertising  our  religion  as  a 
remedy  even  for  the  neglect  it  suffers.  By 
advertising  it,  I  mean  wishing  to  let  people 
know  how  much  we  have  of  it,  —  affirming  our 
personal  or  denominational  superiority  in  it. 
Unpopular  parties,  alike  with  those  greedy  for 
more  popularity,  are  tempted  to  this  resort.  In 
a  community's  stupid  and  stubborn  ignorance 
of  what  is  for  its  good,  it  may  seem  justifiable. 
The  general  advantages  of  advertising  cannot 
be  denied.  Of  men  in  business  it  is  said,  u  They 
failed  because  they  did  not  advertise."  But 
spiritual  goods  are  of  a  peculiar  and  delicate 
sort,  rendering  it  for  them  a  questionable  means. 
Especially  painful  is  the  conflict  of  invitations 
from  rival  ostensible  depositaries  of  that  Holy 
Ghost  which  has  on  earth  no  shop  or  permanent 
receiver ;  nor  a  less  mournful  sight,  that  of  re- 
ligious societies  regarding  the  worship  of  God 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  57 

as  a  financial  concern,  and  judging  of  their 
prosperity  by  the  fulness  of  their  buildings  and 
sale  of  their  pews.  This  fulness  and  sale  may 
be  from  reasons  more  or  less  religious.  There 
may  be  a  drama  or  concert  in  the  church,  instead 
of  teaching  or  worship.  The  meeting-house,  how- 
ever, of  which  it  can  never  be  said,  on  particular 
occasions,  that  "  hundreds  went  away,  unable  to 
obtain  admission,"  seems,  in  this  country,  con- 
sidered of  an  inferior  sort. 

Information  of  religious  services  and  inten- 
tions, if  there  be  in  it  no  ambition,  may  be 
wanted  and  desirable  ;  but,  mostly,  quiet  work 
is  best.  Not  with  dogmatism,  but  diffidence,  is 
here  offered  to  others  a  conviction,  strong  in 
itself,  affecting  customs  about  which  good  men 
disagree.  But  the  continual  printed  list,  to  the 
wistful  eye  of  those  in  quest  of  a  sensation, 
of  the  notable,  as  contradistinguished  from  the 
uncelebrated  and  less  worthy,  preaching  of  the 
day,  is  one  straw  or  trifle  among  many  indica- 
tions of  a  superficial  quality  in  our  religion.  Of 
the  three  dimensions  philosophers  designate,  we 
have  more  length  and  breadth  than  depth.  There 
is  great  want  of  cubic  solidity  in  our  piety  and 


58  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

virtue.  The  convention,  the  association,  is  good; 
but  yet  more  needful  is  a  seeking  to  the  Spirit 
with  earnest  thought.  There  is  a  communion 
without  conversation  or  spoken  word.  Religion 
is  not  a  beggar,  to  be  patronized ;  but  a  prince. 
So  let  it  be  shown  and  served,  and  its  riches 
and  favor  received. 

Diverse  are  the  manifestations  of  the  error  we 
should  shun.  Vulgar  appeals  to  publicity  for 
articles  on  hand,  and  stirring  up  temporary  ex- 
citements about  religion  as  an  interest  separate 
from  life,  alike  lower  the  dignity  of  the  pulpit. 
Feverish  heavings  of  the  general  heart,  called 
"revivals," — which  set  everybody  running  away 
from  his  house  and  affairs,  where  his  character 
should  be  reared  and  disciplined,  to  look  after 
his  insulated  soul,  —  may  be  necessary  to  men 
engrossed  in  the  world,  or  dead  in  trespasses 
and  sins ;  but,  like  rude  shifts  to  get  out  of  the 
mire,  should  be  thrown  aside  as  soon  as  their 
feet  touch  firm  ground.  When  we  read  placards 
of  prayer,  —  "  Come  -  in,  stranger,  five  minutes, 
ten,  or  fifteen,"  —  how  we  think  of  him  who 
posted  no  such  bill,  rebuked  the  Pharisees'  phy- 
lacteries and  street-devotions,  and  said,  "  When 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  59 

thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  closet,  and  shut  the 
door  M  !  The  late  unprecedented  religious  com- 
motion in  Ireland,  whatever  moral  benefits  may 
attend  it,  has  run  so  much  into  the  form  of  a 
bodily  malady,  that  the  physicians  have  had  to 
interfere. 

Let  us  have  less  of  talk  and  physical  emotion, 
— more  of  trust  and  peace.  The  great  institutions 
of  society  should,  like  ships  of  burden  and  deep 
draught,  move  calmly  on  the  tide  of  time ; 
by  their  own  gravity,  and  the  weight  of  the  in- 
terests they  foster  and  represent,  drawing  the 
attention  they  deserve  and  will  reward.  Let 
there  be  zeal  in  their  behalf,  if  not  fitful 
and  crackling,  steady-burning  and  according  to 
knowledge.  Let  scholarship,  genius,  and  elo- 
quence enlist,  indeed,  in  the  cause  of  piety ; 
and  let  the  winds,  after  the  law  of  moral 
acoustics,  blow  what  rumor  thereof  they  will 
abroad :  but  solicitation  of  regard  for  our  par- 
ticular conventicle  looks  too  much  like  gasping 
for  breath,  or  desiring  public  pity  for  a  precari- 
ous enterprise.  Let  us  not,  even  to  keep  out  of 
difficulty,  advertise  our  piety  or  truth :  let  us 
sink  and  vanish  from  the  earth  sooner  !     It  was 


60  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

well  intimated  by  that  soul  of  singular  insight, 
P.  W.  Robertson,  that  self-advertisement  is  the 
last  resort  of  a  feeble  cause.  The  hypocrites  of 
old  blew  their  trumpets  before  them,  because 
there  was  in  them  no  strength  of  character,  — 
no  march  as  of  a  celestial  host.  Troops  on  parade 
are  noisy ;  but,  as  they  go  to  battle,  they  are 
still. 

No  doubt,  there  may  be  an  assertion  of  our 
claims  consistent  with  humility,  and  for  the  sake 
of  the  service  of  God.  There  are  not  wanting 
ethical  counsellors  to  assure  us,  on  the  highest 
grounds,  that  we  must  be  bold  to  take  our  place 
and  raise  our  voice,  else  of  the  greatest  merit 
there  wTill  be  no  heed.  The  world,  it  is  said, 
will  allow  to  us  the  position  we  seize.  Truly  a 
morality  after  the  Louis  Napoleon  kind  !  We 
cannot  mistrust  the  motive  with  which  a  Euro- 
pean teacher  told  an  American  seeker  for  wisdom, 
"  You  friends  of  progress  do  not  put  yourselves 
enough  forward.  People  would  flock  to  you,  if 
you  more  confidently  assured  them  of  the  truth 
and  good  you  possess."  But  will  not  truth  and 
good  be  seen  of  themselves,  without  being  so 
carefully  and  wilfully  bolstered  ?     How  can  the 


TO   THE    CHURCH.  61 

sun  be  hid  in  a  corner  ?  u  How,"  exclaimed 
Plato,  "  can  a  man  be  concealed  ?  "  All  boasting 
cheapens.  Our  most  pithy  proverbs  teach,  that, 
where  there  is  most  exclamatory  laudation,  the 
substance  falls  short.  A  man  was  seen,  on  the 
last  Fourth  of  July,  at  the  edge  of  the  Common, 
beating  a  drum,  and  stoutly  declaring  his  pur- 
pose to  summon  all  flesh ;  but  it  was  to  a  mise- 
rable wax-figure  exhibition.  The  grandeur  of 
nature,  the  beauty  of  truth,  the  glory  of  genius, 
and  the  ecstasy  of  devotion,  omit  the  drum  !  Let 
us  rejoice  in  the  mutual  amity,  in  this  land,  of  the 
pulpit  and  the  press, —  the  theocratic  power  and 
the  third  estate  ;  and  that  neither  has  felt  the 
chains  they  wear  in  Italy  and  France,  and  so 
widely  through  the  earth.  Let  the  pulpit  and 
the  press  honor  and  uphold  each  other  ;  but  let 
not  the  former  ever  come  to  the  degradation  of 
being  suspended  on  a  paragraph,  while  the  latter 
maintains  its  independence  of  any  ecclesiastical 
behest. 

This  caution  would  not  here  be  so  insisted 
on,  but  that  it  goes  to  the  heart  of  all  reality 
and  worth.  A  single  aim  is  the  rare  excellence ; 
and  daily  events  show  private  honor  the  most 


62  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

important  and  imperilled  virtue.  Where  so 
much,  as  in  this  country,  is  determined  by  the 
popular  voice,  we  are  in  danger  of  holding  all 
dependent  on  it,  and  of  presenting  every  thing 
to  the  popular  eye.  But  supreme  excellence  is 
not  by  hand-vote,  and  never  a  creature  of  the 
majority.  Much  of  the  most  conscientious  and 
durable  work  of  the  true  architect  is  out  of  sight. 
At  the  foundation  of  the  edifice,  and  on  the  back 
side  of  the  pillar,  in  groins  and  arches  of  his 
structure,  he  toils  and  carves  as  on  the  portal 
and  the  shrine.  So  is  it  with  the  builder  of  the 
spiritual  temple  of  God  in  his  own  and  others' 
souls.  Never  with  ostentation  is  a  holy  man's 
effort.  In  religion,  especially,  let  us  be  on  our 
guard  against  the  self-blazonry  which  is  the  epi- 
demic of  the  day.  Let  us  have  no  reference,  in 
what  we  do  or  say,  to  the  suffrage  or  the  clap. 
Let  us  never  commit  the  old  sin  of  numbering 
the  people  who  are  with  us.  Let  us  toil,  and 
not  tell  of  it.  Let  us  pray  like  the  saintly 
woman,  who,  to  the  inquirer  after  her  secret 
prayers,  had  none  to  speak  of.  Let  the  doings 
of  our  right  hand  be  such  as  the  left  is  not 
acquainted  with.   As  there  were  once  professors 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  63 

of  poverty,  let  us  be  lovers  of  obscurity ;  and 
we  need  not  fear  the  Just  One,  God,  will  ever 
throw  away  our  deed. 

We  may,  on  this  high  spiritual  basis,  have 
small  congregations.  But  for  small  congrega- 
tions something  is  to  be  said.  That  was  a  small 
one  in  the  upper  chamber  at  Jerusalem  ;  a 
small  one  of  dispersed  fugitives  after  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ ;  a  small  one  —  only  about  a 
hundred  and  twenty  —  met  to  complete  the 
number  of  apostles  made  vacant  by  the  traitor's 
fall ;  and  a  small  one  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
till  the  noising  abroad  of  the  miracle  brought 
the  multitude  together.  But  what  great  con- 
gregation, with  its  ephemeral,  out-of-door  admi- 
ration of  some  stirring,  declamatory  word,  ever 
moved  the  world  like  these? 

The  conclusion,  then,  is,  that,  for  all  the  cor- 
ruptions incident  to  our  religion  in  human 
imperfection,  there  is  no  effectual  remedy  but 
just  to  try  the  religion  itself.  Every  thing,  from 
David's  sling  to  the  prophet's  roll,  must  be 
tried.  Let  us  try  our  religion  in  its  own  authen- 
tic, spiritual  characteristics  ;  which  are  external 
simplicity,  social  loyalty,  and  personal  fidelity. 


64  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

First,  external  simplicity.  The  great  mistake 
to  which  rational  Christians  are  now  exposed 
is  that  of  seeking  an  antidote  to  the  ills  of 
their  own  constitution  in  imitating  the  complex 
ways  of  other  bodies.  Is  not  the  true  wisdom, 
instead  of  aping,  rather  to  offset  these  with  a 
strict  simplicity?  What  but  this  is  the  unde- 
niable trait  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  the 
early  disciples  ?  How  poor  and  provisional 
indeed,  and  in  what  low  adaptation  to  the  weak- 
ness of  human  nature,  is  the  reason,  originally 
and  always,  for  any  disfiguring  or  abnegation  of 
it!  Authentic  history  informs  us  how,  in  the 
times  of  that  pope-king,  Henry  VIII.,  the  forms 
of  the  English  Church  were  devised  and  copied 
from  the  Romish,  precisely  on  account  of  the 
gross  ignorance  of  the  clergy.  Ah  !  what  need 
we  more  than  the  hounding  persecution  by 
Henry's  daughter,  the  Protestant  Elizabeth,  of 
many  of  her  subjects,  for  not  Romanizing  suffi- 
ciently for  her  policy  in  their  worship,  to 
dissuade  us  from  all  bondage  to  such  forms, 
even  did  we  not  recoil  from  the  first  low  ground 
of  their  practice  ?  Let  us,  at  least,  have  dignity 
enough  to  respect  our  antecedents  and  the  root 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  65 

that  has  borne  us !  Let  us,  in  the  line  of  the 
Pilgrims,  —  which  God  grant  may  never  be 
broken  or  run  out  !  —  worship  in  simplicity. 
What  and  exactly  how  much  appeal  to  the  ima- 
gination and  taste,  by  architecture,  music, 
painting,  and  statuary,  may  consist  with  reli- 
gious simplicity,  we  may  not  presume  to  decide  : 
only  that  none  can  do  so,  which  overlays  the 
fundamental  feeling  ;  nay,  which  is  not  quite  sub- 
ordinate and  incidental  to  the  grander  spiritual 
exercises  of  thought  and  love  and  homage  in 
the  soul. 

The  tendencies  of  the  age  are  irresistibly  to 
this  very  point.  The  interruption  for  centuries 
now  of  the  finest  of  all  specimens  of  cathedral- 
building  at  Cologne ;  the  unfinished  state  of 
many  a  little  modern  edifice,  vainly  attempting 
a  splendor  resembling  that  of  more  ancient  tem- 
ples ;  the  dependence  on  a  precarious  pilgrim- 
age of  St.  Peter's  itself  for  costs  of  repair ;  with 
many  a  sign  beside,  —  indicate  the  age  of  the 
magnificent  structures  of  piety  as  passing  or 
past.  On  a  fair  consideration  of  the  reasons 
and  issues  of  this,  —  in  a  finer  development  of 
the  soul   come  to   its  manlier  estate,  and,  for 


66  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

loftier  motions  of  love  and  truth,  putting  com- 
paratively childish  things  away,  —  we  shall  find 
it  no  subject  of  bitter  regret.  It  were  a  foolish 
inference,  that  piety  itself  is  therefore  failing, 
or  ever  going  to  die.  It  may  have,  with  plain- 
ness, exquisite  proportion  in  its  shrine :  but  it 
does  not,  for  its  life  or  excitement,  rely  on  aisles 
or  arches;  on  the  sheafed  pillars,  like  wheat- 
bundles  in  the  field,  that  support  them ;  on 
sculpture  bending  from  the  niche  ;  or  the 
stained  window,  that  lets  in  the  discolored 
light.  Nay,  even  for  the  imagination,  beside 
this  fine  tuition,  in  a  primary  school  of  the 
chisel  and  the  brush,  there  is  an  inexpensive  and 
inestimable  education,  in  the  forms  of  nature, 
in  the  course  of  Providence,  and  the  wondrous 
events  of  our  faith. 

We  may  lament  the  decay  of  sacred  art ;  Ave 
may  cry  shame  on  the  selfishness  that  lavishes 
luxury  on  a  private  dwelling,  and  leaves  bare 
the  holy  walls  ;  we  may  think  Ruskin's  "  lamp  of 
sacrifice  w  burns  so  fair,  'tis  pity  it  could  not  be 
lighted  in  all  our  sanctuaries  :  but,  for  some 
generations  now,  the  essentials  of  worship  have 
proved  their  independence  of  its  show.     Our 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  67 

Christianity  is  hereafter  to  be  sought  less  in  its 
splendid  isolations,  and  more  in  its  unseen  per- 
vading of  human  life.  Its  temple  and  altar  to 
God  are  becoming  such  as 
the  famous  doxology  :  — 

"  To  Him  whose  tempi 
Whose  altar,  earth,  s< 

Its  spiritual  simplicity  must  be  asserted  as  one 
of  its  chief  attributes.  Our  thoughtful  Chan- 
ning  gave,  as  the  cause  of  his  declining  to 
preach  at  a  certain  dedication,  that  he  could 
not  express  such  interest  in  the  fine  build- 
ing as  might  be  desired.  There  is,  indeed,  a 
higher  concern  !  Jesus  Christ  does  not  seem  to 
have  expended  much  admiration  on  even  the 
goodly  stones  of  the  matchless  edifice  which  he 
declared  must  come  down,  and  greater  than 
which  he  pronounced  the  divine  humanity, 
whose  figure  stood  so  mean  under  its  glittering 
height. 

Great,  indeed,  is  the  struggle  to  which  this 
simplicity  of  the  Master  puts  the  follower's  soul. 
As  it  was  said,  only  Jove  could  touch  the  thun- 
der with  his  naked  hand;  so  many  will  argue 


68  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

that  the  lightnings  of  truth  in  the  spiritual 
world  must  be  folded  up,  instead  of  being 
received  or  wielded  in  their  unmitigated,  flash- 
ing strength.  But  our  Lord  himself,  while 
using  for  the  dull  of  heart  many  a  parable, 
plainly  apprised  his  friends  of  his  expectation, 
that  they,  and  all  truly  believing  in  him,  should 
hold  letter  and  symbol  in  an  ever-diminishing 
proportion  to  his  direct  sense.  The  great  argu- 
ment of  numbers  will  still  long  be  on  the  other 
side,  and  against  such  simplicity.  But  wThat 
Pagans,  are  we,  if  to  that  argument  we  yield  ! 
The  lesser  number  must  be  not  only  counted, 
but  weighed,  or  our  sum  is  not  proved. 

Next,  we  must  try  our  religion  in  its  social 
loyalty.  What  imports,  is  the  communion  of  its 
votaries,  not  the  circumstances  in  which  they 
commune.  If  great  principles  bring  them  to- 
gether, though  only  two  or  three,  they  are  a 
church,  in  a  catacomb  or  a  barn,  or  a  cave  on 
a  hill-side.  An  increase  of  common  interest  in 
the  objects  of  its  association  would  augment  the 
prosperity  of  any  local  church,  more  than  all 
the  lures  of  style  and  manner  it  could  hang  out 
as  banners  to  attract  the  public,  and  distance 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  69 

competitors  in  that  race  of  popularity  so  univer- 
sal in  this  land.  It  is  indeed  mournful  to  remark 
the  wide  lack  of  this  loyalty,  to  witness  the 
slight  attachment  of  multitudes  to  the  spot  of 
their  fathers'  labor  and  sacrifice,  and  to  the  seats 
where  the  shadows  of  departed  kindred  still 
linger,  as  if  even  the  Indian  virtue  were  not 
ours ;  and  to  note,  in  the  easy  strolling  of  crowds 
from  place  to  place,  the  proof  how  little  many, 
persons  even  imagine  themselves  united  to 
carry  any  purposes,  or  to  be  after  aught  more 
than  the  temporary  diversion  of  their  minds.. 
More  conspiring  in  every  tribute  of  homage,, 
more  co-operation  in  every  work  of  charity,, 
verily  we  need. 

In  fine,  and  above  all,  our  remedy  is  to  try 
our  religion  in  its  main  attribute  of  personal 
fidelity.  The  most  beautiful  and  promising  ar- 
rangement without  this  is  but  a  cloak,  and  not 
the  cure.  "  There  is  too  much  individuality  j 
there  is  not  love  and  fellowship  and  social 
intercourse  enough,"  we  hear  it  loudly  com- 
plained. Verily,  strange  terms  of  accusation ! 
As  if  individuality  were  disintegration  and  dis- 
solution !   The  more  true  individuality,  the  more 

5 


70  THE   WORD    OP   THE   SPIRIT 

union.  We  do  not  find  fault  with  the  chemical 
atoms,  that  they  are  too  decided  atoms :  they 
combine  all  the  better.  So  the  Broad,  yea,  the 
Universal  Church,  when  it  comes,  will  be  a  com- 
bination of  souls,  all  the  more  fast  together  for 
their  separate  sincerity  and  truth.  There  is,  no 
doubt,  an  ungracious  individualism,  the  farthest 
possible  from  true  individual  culture  or  perfec- 
tion. But  the  great  want  is,  not  simply  more 
conspiring  together  in  this  or  that  design,  — 
wise  or  foolish,  good  or  bad,  —  but  better  men 
and  women  to  conspire.  May  the  Lord  multiply 
individuals  of  the  right  stamp,  in  all  personal 
faithfulness ! 

Individuality  indeed !  Is  not  the  love  itself 
that  binds  us  to  God  and  our  fellows  intrinsic 
part  of  our  genuine  individual  being?  It  wrere 
not  worth  offering  to  God  or  one  another,  unless 
it  were.  Will  a  sacrament,  without  the  senti- 
ment, of  brotherhood,  make  a  Christian's  love  ? 
No  more  than  free  papers,  without  freedom  in 
his  heart,  will  make  a  slave's  liberty.  We  must 
beware  of  a  delusion  from  names.  Not  they 
who  most  mention  sympathy  may  have  it  most. 
Nominal  saints  are  not  seldom  less  lovely  than 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  71 

confessed  sinners.  "Do  not  marry  a  philan- 
thropist," said  to  her  friend  a  woman  who  had 
seen  of  the  fraternity  some  that  did  not  mani- 
fest the  feeling  they  professed.  Of  all  things, 
bring  not  the  Spirit's  effectiveness  into  doubt. 
When  its  organs  appear,  no  more  plainly  will  a 
hammer  prove  its  office  to  drive  nails,  or  an 
engine  its  fitness  to  draw  the  train,  than  will 
they  vindicate  its  use. 

What  alone  we  should  wait  and  look  for  is  the 
incarnation  of  the  Spirit  in  the  shape  of  living 
men.  Most  significantly  is  the  Incarnation  a 
great  doctrine  of  our  faith.  But  was  it,  as  theo- 
logians suppose,  summed  up,  quite  ended  and 
exhausted,  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  No :  per- 
fect as  it  may  have  been  only  in  him,  it  re-ap- 
pears in  every  daily  beautiful  life.  We  are  sure 
of  the  virtue  of  no  system  till  it  has  been  tried. 
The  idealist  is  shocked  at  the  offspring  which, 
from  his  own  doctrines,  human  passions  some- 
times bring  forth.  But,  wherever  the  Christian 
Spirit  is  reproduced,  the  Christ  himself  is  pre- 
sent and  lives  on  earth.  Defiant,  ungracious, 
and  warlike  heralds  in  the  name  of  the  Spirit 
may  stand  up,  and  hurl  forth  their  message  as  a 


72  THE   WORD    OF   THE  SPIRIT 

missile  ;  but  the  Spirit  disowns  them.  If  the 
Holy  Dove  offer  to  descend  into  their  assembly, 
how  soon  it  averts  its  face,  and  flies  from  their 
levelled  gun  ! 

Yet,  without  violence  or  wrath,  this  personal 
fidelity  must  be  evinced  in  trying  the  applica- 
tion of  religion  to  life.  The  old  notion  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  pope  to  the  king  was  the 
shadow  of  a  truth.  All  secular  affairs  should 
obey  the  divine  law.  The  church  on  earth  is 
valuable  so  far  as  it  enacts  and  induces  such  a 
result.  This  universal  and  unlimited  obedience 
it  is  the  pulpit's  business  to  hold  forth  and 
require.  It  sometimes  renounces  it  in  part; 
but  it  cannot  be  excused,  anywhere  or  in  any 
thing,  from  this  paramount  task.  It  is  some- 
times blamed,  and  may  be  at  fault  and  blame- 
worthy, in  its  method  of  performing  it.  It  is 
reproached  with  preaching  politics.  If  it  vio- 
late the  decent  neutrality  of  political  parties,  or 
grieve  the  conscience  of  good  citizens  for  their 
honest  opinions'  sake,  the  reproach  is  deserved. 
It  does  not  belong  to  its  province  to  take  sides 
with  antagonist  sets  of  hearers.  Yet  does  it 
not  fall  within  its  sphere  to  enjoin  integrity, 


TO   THE    CHUKCH.  73 

veracity,  and  purity  in  civil  life  ?  Does  it  break 
any  fair  friendship  or  true  honor  in  rebuking 
falsehood,  bloodshed,  and  bribery,  and  in  depre- 
cating the  spread  of  inhumanity  and  slavery? 
Nay,  the  servant  of  the  Lord,  who  is  dumb 
when  Iniquity  stalks  abroad,  and  Tyranny  sets  up 
her  standard  in  the  guise  of  Freedom,  and  who 
perad venture  condemns  other  servants  because 
they  speak,  abdicates  his  office  on  the  spot,  and 
subjects  himself  to  impeachment  at  the  final 
bar.  If  there  be  certain  departments  of  legis- 
lation, society,  and  business,  which  are  clean 
outside  the  domain  of  religion,  what  little  cor- 
ner of  this  universe  shall  she  find,  like  a  muez- 
zin crying  to  prayer,  to  announce  in  the  ears 
of  men  her  commonplace  generalities,  —  "  Read 
your  Bible  and  say  your  prayers ;  be  good  and 
do  good!"  In  this  position,  her  privilege  is 
gone ;  her  voice  is  an  abstraction ;  her  sphere, 
a  mystery ;  her  teaching,  a  scheme ;  and  her 
utmost  skill,  while  the  earth  is  groaning  and 
travailing  in  pain  for  the  manifestation  of  the 
sons  of  God,  to  keep  things  as  they  are.  Not 
long  could  she  live  and  abide  on  the  earth,  with 
no  other  function  but  this.     Nay,  she  were  not 


74  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

here,  but  long  since  extinguished  in  her  blood, 
had  she  discharged  no  other  ! 

It  is  said,  u  The  sacred  desk  should  confine 
itself  to  the  themes  of  gospel-salvation,  as  Paul 
and  Jesus  did."  But  what  was  it  Paul  and  Jesus 
did?  They  applied  religion  to  life  in  Judaea, 
and  far  and  wide  through  the  heathen  world. 
Were  they  alive  now  and  here,  would  they  but 
refer  to  habits  and  theories  once  prevailing  at 
Jerusalem,  Ephesus,  and  Corinth  ?  or  apply  reli- 
gion to  life  in  Boston,  and  wherever  they  should 
go  ?  Ah  !  religion,  that  with  them  was  so  vital 
and  real,  has  become  too  technical  and  tradi- 
tional with  us.  It  is,  indeed,  now  soberly  al- 
leged, that  our  religion  was  completely  made 
for  us  and  finished  eighteen  hundred  years  ago, 
with  a  curse  upon  him  who  should  add  to  or 
diminish  it  by  a  tittle  or  jot.  But  was  it  con- 
cluded verily  in  literal  terms,  and  in  so  many 
words  ?  Do  we  not  read  that  the  letter }  even  of 
the  Bible,  killeth? 

To  the  grand  tradition  of  our  religion  let  us 
cling.  But  to  hold  fast  to  all  the  occurrences 
and  decisions  of  ecclesiastical  annals  from  the 
first,  providential  and  saving  as  they  may  have 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  75 

been  in  their  several  times,  would  be  like  tack- 
ing to  any  tool,  instrument,  or  steam-apparatus, 
all  the  rude  beginnings  of  invention  which  im- 
provement has,  one  after  another,  successively 
displaced.  Yet  this  is  what  the  ecclesiastic 
agents  would  have  us  do !  The  immortality  of 
truth  is  in  its  new  applications.  They  may  be 
sometimes  hazardous  at  the  outset,  like  those  of 
science  to  art,  in  the  ship,  the  railway,  the  tele- 
graph, and  the  balloon ;  but  they  will  be  safe 
and  blessed  in  the  end.  What  applications 
among  heathen  fanes  and  idolatrous  symbols, 
under  the  edge  of  axes,  before  the  shadows  of 
crosses,  and  at  the  gloomy  mouths  of  dungeon- 
doors,  fronting  the  pagan  splendor,  were  made 
by  the  original  Christians !  We  need  to  re- 
peruse  the  tale  of  those  glorious  old  martyr- 
doms, which  a  word  of  compromise,  an  act  of 
concession,  a  pinch  of  sweet  dust  on  a  flaming 
shrine  of  Jupiter,  a  bending  of  the  counte- 
nance before  a  beauteous  image  on  the  wall, 
or  one  assenting  motion  of  lip  or  finger,  might 
have  spared.  But  the  sufferers  could  not  afford 
so  much  !  Thank  God,  and  thank  the  sufferers, 
that  they  could  not !     It  is  not  for  us  to  vie 


76  THE   WOBD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

with  them  after  the  very  same  fashion  of  cou- 
rage and  self-sacrifice ;  but  our  own  applications, 
at  every  risk,  and  with  all  consecration  and 
denial  of  ourselves,  let  us  make.  Then,  as  the 
cedar,  though  cut  and  sawed,  and  transported  by 
land  and  sea,  loses  not  its  savor,  but  salutes  us 
with  its  sweet  fragrance  even  by  the  waysides  of 
business  and  across  the  dusty  pavement,  trodden 
under  foot,  and  ringing  with  the  wheels  of  travel ; 
so  every  act  of  our  career  shall  be  genuine,  and 
smell  of  the  tree  of  life. 

Whoever  would  be  under  authority,  just,  sav- 
ing, and  supreme,  let  him  hearken,  then,  to  the 
Spirit.  Everywhere,  without  us  and  within,  to 
the  open  ear  eternally  sounds  its  oracle.  Its  rule 
is  no  easy  one  to  live  by,  even  for  an  hour.  It 
emancipates  us  into  no  license  of  personal  folly. 
It  remands  us  to  unfailing  reverence  for  all  it 
has  done  through  every  instrument,  and  uttered 
in  any  mouth,  since  the  world  began.  It  is  its 
own  evidence,  and  has  no  witness  but  itself.  It 
can  be  caught  in  no  system  ever  by  theological 
mechanics  put  together.  It  escapes  the  limit 
of  all  forms  and  formulas.  From  the  audience- 
chamber  of  the  breast,  from  the  bosom  of  human- 


TO    THE    CHURCH.  77 

ity,  from  the  fresh  work  and  from  the  old  word 
of  God,  it  speaks ;  while  truth,  holiness,  and 
love  are  its  invariable  dictates.  No  new  eccle- 
siastic policy  it  issues,  no  modern  sect  bids  us 
join,  to  meet  no  ancient  association  does  it  order 
us  to  wheel  round ;  but  to  be  living  branches  of 
the  Christian  vine  we  grew  from,  good  members 
of  the  race  we  are  born  in,  and  docile  children 
of  Him  by  whom  we  are  begotten.  It  asks  not 
who  is  orthodox,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  Nathanael, 
who  is  honest  and  without  guile.  It  accepts 
not  the  person  of  the  Liberal,  but  of  the  loving 
and  the  just ;  demanding  to  what  and  to  whom 
we  are  liberal,  what  our  liberality  is,  and  whether 
and  how  far  it  is  to  our  own  errors  and  sins,  or 
to  other  men's.  At  once  it  breathes  new  inspi- 
ration, vivifies  long-standing  records,  and  brings 
to  remembrance  the  teaching  and  example  of 
every  heavenly  prophet  and  ascended  saint. 
Truly  is  its  name  and  type  the  atmosphere. 
Like  that,  it  is  not  only  in  us ;  we  are  in  it :  and 
what  the  outer  element  is  for  a  while  to  our 
perishing  body,  from  its  boundless  spread  and 
eternal  purity,  this  finer  air  will  be  for  ever  to 
our  soul.    In  proportion  as  we  breathe  it,  abuses 


78  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

will  disappear   as  diseases  do,  less  from  drugs 
than  from  a  healthy  clime. 

For  the  Spirit,  then,  be  our  prayer.  It  may 
be  said,  "  However  well  spirituality  may  be  in 
its  place,  we  need  ecclesiastical  policy  too,  and  a 
social  league,  in  order  to  any  effect  among  man- 
kind, and  to  draw  us  away  from  the  hurtful 
seclusion  and  impotence  to  which  an  over-spirit- 
uality tends.77  Let  "  honest  arts  "  of  plan  and 
contrivance  certainly  be  employed  as  far  as  they 
can  avail.  Let  it  not,  however,  be  supposed  that 
the  Spirit  is  not  a  worker  hitherto,  Sundays  and 
every  day,  and  of  all  workers  the  chief.  Out 
of  what  solitudes,  hermitages,  and  closets  it 
comes,  in  shapes  such  as  Jesus  from  the  wil- 
derness of  the  Jordan,  Paul  from  Arabia,  and 
Luther  from  the  monastery,  to  disturb  the  minds 
and  manners  of  men,  to  revolutionize  and  uplift 
the  world  !  How  it  burns  up  the  wood,  hay,  and 
stubble  from  heart,  house,  and  street !  Institu- 
tions that  we  talk  so  much  of  are  its  conse- 
quence, not  its  cause.  A  man  is  sometimes  — 
in  the  world's  annals  has  been  ten  thousand 
times  —  more  than  a  college,  and,  as  an  organ 
of  the  Spirit,  communicates  better  lessons  than 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  79 

a  library  or  a  university  to  his  race.  In  that 
common  supplication,  sometimes  appointed  by 
Christians  for  "an  outpouring  of  the  Spirit," 
let  us  first  of  all,  and  most  of  all,  therefore 
join. 


This  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit, 
as  the  soul's  only  authority,  disowns  not,  but 
alone  accommodates,  the  fact,  power,  and  value 
of  the  church  in  its  subordinate  place.  The 
church  is  itself  a  vehicle  of  the  Spirit,  but  not 
the  only  conveyance.  It  has  no  refusal  of  the 
Spirit;  no  right  to  countermand  its  unofficial 
appearance  in  any  person,  or  to  contradict  its 
inner  and  immediate  gift.  The  use  of  discus- 
sion is  simply  to  set  church  and  Spirit  in  proper 
relative  proportion,  as  ideas  in  our  mind,  and 
forces  in  our  life.  To  allow  the  church  prece- 
dence in  our  thought,  till  the  Spirit  becomes  a 
rare  conception  and  unwonted  influence,  is  no 
more  an  offence  to  reason  than  it  is  a  departure 
from  the  Lord  Jesus,  who  dates  and  derives 
all  from  it  for  himself,  while  unto  it  he  enjoins 
his  followers7  main  resort. 


80  THE   WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

If  it  be  said,  u  This  direct  access  to  God  is 
a  barren  notion,  because,  as  Christians,  we  are 
in  and  of  the  church,  mere  heirs  of  its  property, 
and,  but  for  it,  our  pure  individuality  were  a 
spiritual  nonentity,"  the  reply  is,  Of  course, 
our  approach  to  the  Father  is  in  the  circum- 
stances of  his  providence  ;  our  ecclesiastical 
fellowship,  like  our  kindred  blood  and  social 
ties,  is  one  of  those  circumstances;  while  all 
things  —  birthplace  and  human  friendship,  and 
the  earthly  personality  of  Jesus  —  must  be  con- 
strued as  but  circumstances  in  comparison  with 
the  sublime  and  matchless  reality  of  our  Divine 
Source.  Besides,  one  medium  of  grace  as  the 
church  may  be,  it  is  not  as  from  a  local  and  tem- 
poral ruler  that  its  own  communication  is  most 
vital  and  abundant.  It  is  called  an  organization ; 
but  it  is  before  and  beyond  what  we  call  its  or- 
ganization. Doubtless  it  can  and  must  organize 
itself,  or  be  organized  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  its 
members'  hearts.  When  organized,  truly  what 
multitudes  and  majorities  of  individual  men  lean 
on  it,  drink  from  it,  are  attached  and  built  into 
it,  like  the  thousands  of  marble  statues  that 
adorn  some  of  its  edifices,  and  centre  in  its  very 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  81 

shape  their  hopes  of  heaven !  But  because  of 
ignorance  is  such  stopping  with  it  as  a  finality 
for  mankind.  This  is  not  the  true  state  of  the 
soul.  Practically  necessary  as  it  may  be,  it  is 
bare  initiation  of  better  things,  which  should  be 
earnestly  asserted  and  predicted,  and  brought  to 
pass. 

Is  it,  however,  stigmatized  as  quite  visionary 
thus  in  general  to  esteem  the  soul,  instead  of 
regarding  the  wants  of  actual  men  and  women, 
to  whom  the  church  will  always  be  the  way? 
and  is  it  alleged  that  so  highly  spiritual  a  doc- 
trine overlooks  the  broad  distinction  between 
ends  and  means?  In  religious  matters,  I  an- 
swer, this  distinction  holds  but  poorly  and  in 
part.  The  ends  of  truth,  goodness,  and  holiness, 
are  in  their  means,  and  inseparable  from  them. 
In  this  lies  the  beautiful  verity  of  Herbert's . 
hymn :  — 

"  In  all  I  do,  be  Thou  the  way ; 
In  all,  be  Thou  the  end." 

Will  it  be  inquired  if  the  doctrine  I  have  main- 
tained does  not  leave  all  to  the  mercy  of  private 
judgments  and  the  vagaries  of  individual  opi- 


82  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

nion  ?  I  can  only  affirm,  in  reply,  the  existence 
and  operation  and  accessibleness  of  the  Spirit 
itself,  above  all  these,  to  illuminate  and  correct. 
Oh  for  more  intuition  of  its  light !  Behold 
what  mighty  minds  are,  in  their  conceptions,  so 
under  the  laws  of  space  and  time,  that  they  can 
imagine  heaven  itself  only  as  remote  beyond 
Saturn  and  the  sun,  instead  of  pervading  the 
world,  and  being  the  altered  aspect  of  the  uni- 
verse to  the  disembodied  soul !  Is  it  objected, 
again,  that  the  Spirit  has  been  tried  among  us 
so  much,  that  it  is  at  least  timely  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  important  and  neglected  functions  of 
the  church?  Ah  !  is  it  not  precisely  because 
the  Spirit  has  been  tried  so  little,  that  the 
church  has  so  prevailed  to  eclipse  it,  as,  with  its 
overweening  and  apparent  size,  the  dull  and 
small  moon  does  the  splendid  magnitude  of  the 
sun,  from  which  it  borrows  all  its  light? 

Yet  who  will  not  cordially  confess  his  obliga- 
tions to  the  visible  body  of  Christ,  marred  and 
crucified  like  his  own  mortal  body  as  it  has 
often  been  ?  Verily  it  is  that  without  which  we 
might  have  been  left  in  the  dark.  If  we  can 
have  a  more  living  and  inspired  church,  how 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  83 

even  the  infallibility  ascribed  to  it  would  be 
approximated  by  the  fact !  Meantime,  let  us 
acknowledge  and  affirm  our  membership  in  it, 
such  as  it  is.  We  will  not,  indeed,  give  up  to 
it  any  advance  of  thought  or  criticism,  character 
or  humanity.  Where  but  in  it,  if  not  wholly  or 
always  of  it,  have  we  made  this  advance  ?  We 
do  not  return  to  it,  because  we  have  never 
separated  from  it.  We  should  as  soon  think  of 
returning  to  our  kind  !  We  are  branches,  never 
cut  from  the  trunk  which  has  grown  out  of  the 
seed  Christ  dropped  in  Judsea,  any  more  than 
from  the  stock  of  human  nature.  The  church 
is  not  an  audibly  praying  and  praising  company 
alone,  within  the  walls  of  one  or  ten  thousand 
buildings  ;  but  it  is  all  Christian  society  and 
civilization.  Therefore  James  Martineau's  late 
letter  on  the  Unitarian  Position,  although  to 
some  it  may  seem  to  gain  in  words  its  distinc- 
tion between  church  and  society  only  by  nar- 
rowing the  sense  of  things  (for  is  not  spreading 
theological  truth  the  proper  business  of  man  in 
the  church  ?  and  do  not  men  associated  for  such 
an  object  truly  accomplish  church  work  ?),  yet, 
in  its  affirming  the  unsectarian  character  of  the 


84  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT 

church  itself,  is  admirably  courageous,  catholic, 
and  grand.  We  are  born  in  the  church.  We 
cannot  be  rid  of  it  more  than  of  our  mother. 
We  did  not  make  it :  it  has  rather  had  a  hand 
in  the  making  of  us.  Therefore  we  cannot,  in 
our  debates,  quite  comprehend  it,  as  we  cannot 
put  any  vital  relation  into  our  understanding; 
and  the  vitality  of  every  relation  would  cease  if 
we  could.  Let  us  assume  our  church-member- 
ship, and  look  on  all  attempts  to  exclude  us  with 
the  innocent  and  extreme  surprise  with  which 
a  distinguished  American  statesman,  of  world- 
wide fame,  regarded  the  attempt  to  thrust  him 
out  of  his  political  party. 

Well  will  it  be,  if  thus  in  some  measure,  as 
well  as  by  more  mysterious  agency,  the  life  of 
God  be  sustained  in  our  breast ;  well,  if  tech- 
nical views  of  redemption  give  place  to  real. 
Yet  how  recently,  on  a  notable  occasion,  the 
everlasting  deliverance  of  a  human  soul  was 
imputed  to  an  understanding  of  the  "  scheme  " 
of  salvation ;  and  the  terms  of  philosophy  sub- 
stituted for  an  incarnation  of  the  truth,  as  the  . 
ground  of  acceptance  with  God  !  Amid  such 
theoretic  errors,  which   turn   religion   into   an 


TO   THE   CHURCH.  85 

abstraction,  what  is  our  first  business  but  to 
insist,  not  on  explaining  or  manipulating,  so 
much  as  living,  the  gospel  ?  Let  us  all,  ministry 
and  laity,  do  our  Christian  duty  where  we  are, 
in  our  particular  churches  and  communities,  and 
to  every  one  that  has  with  us,  far  or  near,  among 
friends  or  down-trod  outcasts,  any  tie.  We 
shall  then  find  ourselves  indeed  in  that  fellow- 
ship, not  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  which  no  man 
can  number,  and  from  which  no  man  can  put 
us  out.  We  shall,  under  God,  be  unawares 
creating  the  church  in  which  we  believe.  We 
shall  not  credit  his  possible  failure  to  carry  for- 
ward his  cause.  Our  faith  will  not  fail;  for 
thinking  it  fails  is  the  only  failure  to  which  it 
can  be  exposed. 

The  Spirit  before  the  church,  in  time  and 
thought,  in  order  and  power,  —  such  is  the  sum 
and  conclusion.  Especially  in  prayer  is  this 
principle  plain.  The  tones  of  voice,  when  many 
sing  together,  may  be  natural ;  but  rarely  when 
they  audibly  pray  together.  Therefore  is  it 
best  that  the  spirits  of  all  should  ascend  in  one 
utterance,  which  the  Spirit  may  articulate  or 
accept.      Of  the    Spirit,  eternity   is   the   attri- 

6 


86  THE  WORD    OF   THE   SPIRIT. 

bute  :  immortality  is  that  of  the  church.  Our 
idea  of  the  Christian  Church  —  that  living 
communion  of  faith  and  love  which  our  Lord 
established  —  will  depend  on  our  idea  of  him. 
If  we  look  on  the  importance  which  has  been 
assigned  to  him  in  the  world  as  an  accident, 
impertinence,  and  illusion  of  the  eye,  we  shall 
endeavor  ourselves,  or  expect  some  coming  man, 
to  prick  the  overblown  dimensions  of  the  sphere 
that  still  bears  his  figure  through  the  space  of 
ages  above  all  beside,  and  brings  it  meek  and 
lowly  to  every  waiting  soul.  But  if  it  seem  a 
more  hopeful  enterprise,  by  our  little  machinery 
to  cause  the  vast  airy  vessel  of  the  solar  system 
to  collapse  on  its  way,  then  his  will  be  to  us,  as 
by  the  apostle  it  is  called,  an  everlasting  king- 
dom, —  the  same  that  prophet  foretold  and 
psalmist  sung,  and  in  which  the  Spirit  is  mani- 
fested, though  not  spent. 


THE      END. 


^ 


14  DAY  USE 

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